For those in the world of shoes – at any part of the food chain, this is for you. For nearly 5 years our mission at ReCircled has been to keep shoes, fashion, textiles, sporting equipment and many other types of consumer goods out of the landfill.
We understand that extending lives of items through repairing, reusing, reselling and all the other “re” words – is a noble goal. However, the hard part, the part that very few talk about are the real messes – the real End-of-Life products that eventually find their way to the landfill.
The challenge has been enormous. Initially, we believed that if we could take it all apart we could keep it from the landfill – and for the most part this remains true, it can be done. When we developed the concept, we simply forgot about the economics – it doesn’t work. We didn’t understand the high level Purity rates that components need to be recycled. We didn’t understand the Time it took to disassemble. And we didn’t realize most of these components, even virgin components, have very low value. Just because we could disassemble, to reach the appropriate purity level, does not mean we create value.
For those that follow our Newsletters, you know that we stumbled on a process called Hydrothermal Liquefaction, or HTL. A 100 year old process that has mostly been used for Organics, can also work for Non-Organics. Determined to find effective solutions, we've taken a leap of faith and are moving ahead full speed.
FIRST – we've located one of the few Pilot Plants that is large enough to run the hundreds of materials in the Footwear & Fashion industry and have engaged them to run necessary trials. We've also employed one of the largest Engineering firms in the world who work on HTL to design the Machine for our needs.
SECOND – we've begun the testing. If you're in the world of Footwear, particularly Sneakers, most of your shoes consist of EVA, Leather and Mixed Textiles. HERE ARE YOUR RESULTS!
The above 3 photographs represent the Oil we produced from a small amount (about 1 pound) of each of the products. Although we have run this separately, the beautiful thing about HTL, it likes Mixed Waste.
We have cracked the code to take your mixed and contaminated products, run them through HTL producing byproducts that HAVE REAL VALUE.
If you are serious about solving for end of life solutions for your waste, now is the time to contact us for a conversation about HTL.
