Allbirds, Adidas-Backed EVA Recycling Tech Scores $50K in New Funding

Jasmin Malik Chua
·3 min read

Call it sole-to-sole recycling.

Braskem America, a Philadelphia-based polypropylene producer, has snagged an R&D grant of more than $50,000 to support its research into grappling with ethylene-vinyl acetate, or EVA, waste.

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The largesse comes courtesy of the Reducing Embodied Energy and Decreasing Emissions, a.k.a. REMADE, Institute, a 167-member-strong public-private partnership that the U.S. Department of Energy established in 2017 to develop innovations to help drive America’s transition to a circular economy.

Braskem America, which boasts five production plants located in Texas, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, an Innovation and Technology Center in Pittsburgh and a New Renewable Innovation Center in Boston, is not alone in its endeavor. The indirect wholly-owned Braskem S.A. subsidiary will be working with some major names—Adidas, Allbirds and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among them—to funnel the funds into furthering its so-called dynamic crosslinking technology and facilitate both the reuse and recyclability of waste generated by permanently cross-linked EVA, the rubbery footwear mainstay that combines ethylene and vinyl acetate.

Braskem America previously created a bio-resin made from sugarcane, known as Sweetfoam, for Allbirds. Sweetfoam was a component in the Futurecraft.Footprint, Adidas and Allbirds’ low-carbon running shoe collab.

The scheme will zero in on generating secondary feedstock from recycled EVA, reducing 0.508 million metric tons of primary EVA, 26.6 petajoules of energy and 0.39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Most EVA is currently recycled by mechanically grinding it down into a mulch suitable mostly for sports surfaces, construction and flooring. Braskem America’s route seeks to regenerate thermoplastic polymers suitable for new shoe production.

Footwear circularity has been a tough nut to crack because of the sheer complexity of a shoe’s design. A single sneaker can comprise dozens of diverse components, designed to promote performance or increase comfort, that are difficult to disassemble into different streams for end-of-life management that—and here’s the rub—also makes economic sense.

MIT’s involvement makes perfect sense. The hallowed institution hosted a circularity summit for several prominent shoe purveyors in March 2022, one that culminated in a “footwear manifesto” acknowledging the breadth of opportunity for brands and manufacturers to jointly invest in sustainable material choices, after-sale platforms and consumer education. In November, MIT fabric innovation manager Yuly Fuentes-Medel launched the Footwear Collective, involving an inaugural cohort of companies such as Brooks Running, Crocs, Ecco, New Balance, Reformation, On, Target and Vibram, in reimagining the future of footwear design and production.

“These guys came in like, ‘O.K., we need action, we need to think big; we have done enough of contaminating the planet; we need to create a pipeline that breaks through the industry,’” Fuentes-Medel told Sourcing Journal at the time.

Braskem America’s technology currently sits between lab and pilot scale. What’s needed to make the “leap” to commercial application, Braskem America said, is extensive testing to ensure consistent quality and performance of recycled EVA for footwear components. Another key goal is a techno-economic analysis to evaluate the cost and energy implications of using recycled shoes as feedstock for new footwear foams. Overall, the project promises “multiple paths” for technology adaptation, it said, potentially reducing the number of discarded kicks moldering in American landfills.

“Braskem and REMADE share a vision for building a more sustainable future, all built upon the creation of a carbon-neutral circular economy,” said Kimberly McLoughlin, principal engineer at Braskem America. “With a mutual passion for R&D-driven innovation, we are creating the next generation of manufacturing and materials science technologies.”