{"id":37575,"date":"2020-11-02T08:07:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T03:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=2068524"},"modified":"2020-11-02T08:07:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T03:07:56","slug":"startup-brands-like-the-shoe-company-thousand-fell-are-bringing-circular-economics-to-the-fashion-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/startup-brands-like-the-shoe-company-thousand-fell-are-bringing-circular-economics-to-the-fashion-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup brands like the shoe company Thousand Fell are bringing circular economics to the fashion industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thousand Fell<\/a>, the environmentally conscious, direct-to-consumer shoe retailer which launched last November, has revealed the details of the recycling program that\u2019s a core component of its pitch to consumers.<\/p>\n

The company, which has now sold enough shoes to start seeing its early buyers begin recycling them after ten months of ownership, expects to recycle roughly 3,000 pairs per quarter by 2021, with the capacity to scale up to 6,000 pairs of shoes.,<\/p>\n

The recycling feature, through partnerships with United Parcel Service and TerraCycle, offers customers the option to avoid simply throwing out the shoes for $20 in cash that the company pays out upon receipt of the old shoes.<\/p>\n

With the initiative, Thousand Fell joins a growing number of companies in consumer retail that are experimenting with various strategies to incorporate reuse into the life-cycle of their products. Nike<\/a> operates a reuse a shoe program<\/a> at some of its stores, which will collect used athletic shoes from any brand for recycling. And several companies are offering denim recycling drop-off locations to take old jeans and convert the material into other products.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Thousand Fell\u2019s recycling partner, TerraCycle, has developed a milkman model for reusing packaging to replace consumer packaged goods like dry goods, beverages, desserts and home and beauty products<\/a> under its Loop brand<\/a> (and in partnership with Kroger and Walgreens).<\/p>\n

Across retail, zero waste packaging and delivery options (and companies emphasizing a more sustainable, circular approach to consumption<\/a>) are attracting increased interest from investors across the board, with everyone from delivery companies to novel packaging materials attracting investor interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThousand Fell owns the material feeds and covers the cost of recycling, as well as the resale or reintegratoin of recycled material back into new shoes and the issuance of the $20 recycling cash that is sent back to the consumer once they recycle,\u201d wrote Thousand Fell co-founder Stuart Ahlum, in an email.<\/p>\n

Clothing and textiles account for 17% of all landfill waste and shoes are particularly wasteful. Shoes account for 10% of retail production capacity but about 25% of textile waste, according to Ahlum.<\/p>\n

The company sells its environmentally friendly shoes for under $100, a price point that makes them more accessible to price-conscious consumers, according to Ahlum.<\/p>\n

Through the program UPS will run shipping for the Thousand Fell sneaker recycling program and making its network of shipping locations \u2014 including within Staples stores \u2014 available for drop-off of Thousand Fell\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

With TerraCycle, Thousand Fell will ensure that the old sneakers will be sustainably recycled and diverted from landfills. UPS\u2019 Ware2Go<\/a> business is also providing fulfillment and warehousing services for Thousand Fell, the companies said in a statement earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, TerraCycle and Thousand Fell are developing a closed loop process where old sneakers will be reintegrated into the supply chain to make new sneakers.<\/p>\n

Through Thousand Fell, shoe buyers can track their purchase history and the carbon footprint of their sneakers at the company\u2019s website \u2014 and register their sneakers once they\u2019ve received them. The registration allows customers to initiate the recycling process at a drop off location or directly shipping their shoes back to TerraCycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis enterprise partnership between UPS, TerraCycle, and Thousand Fell is the reverse logistics engine that powers the circular economy. It solves the critical problem of collecting worn products back from customers \u2014 at scale and at cost,\u201d Ahlum wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

By TechCrunch Source Link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousand Fell, the environmentally conscious, direct-to-consumer shoe retailer which launched last November, has revealed the details of the recycling program that\u2019s a core component of its pitch to consumers. The company, which has now sold enough shoes to start seeing its early buyers begin recycling them after ten months of ownership, expects to recycle roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14083],"tags":[8075,14422,14688,14903,16909,15725,14178,17668,16043],"class_list":{"0":"post-37575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-technology-industry-news","7":"tag-circular-economy","8":"tag-co-founder","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-industries","11":"tag-nike","12":"tag-supply-chain","13":"tag-tc","14":"tag-united-parcel-service","15":"tag-walgreens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}