What: Adidas' latest shoe coup is called Futurecraft Loop and is made of exactly one material. So is the pictured shoe from the Middle Ages.
What it's about: An average sneaker easily consists of 12 materials: leather, textiles, various plastics and adhesives. This makes it virtually impossible to recycle in an economically sensible way.
Thanks to the latest technology, nothing is sewn anymore, but everything is joined by means of pressure and heat. Thanks to high-tech, production made in Germany this technology is becoming competitive again. With the Futurecraft Loop, Adidas goes one step further. Monomaterial is the magic formula. The entire shoe consists of a single material, making recycling a piece of cake. The shoe is not available for purchase, but in a subscription system to guarantee that the discarded shoe is actually turned into a new shoe again.
The mono-material shoe, however, is nothing really new. In the Middle Ages, leather shoes were made in exactly this way. Out of necessity, there was nothing else available. An optimised pattern that required as little waste as possible gave the shoe its shape.
Under the topic of scarcity of resources, the same philosophy has returned in a new form. As the saying goes: necessity is the mother of invention.
Picture 1: Adidas Futurecraft Loop, Picture 2 and 3: Photos taken by Ozan Alaca at a medieval market