Footwear retailer schuh has partnered with acrylic manufacturer, Floreeda, to reduce its carbon emissions by recycling footwear displays to create new sustainable shoe display risers.
Floreeda has collected schuh’s end-of-life risers and used its proprietary recycling technology, REFLO, to transform the acrylic into a completely new display product, saving 1064kg of CO₂e in the process.
REFLO is a low-impact, non-toxic procedure that generates 4mm clear and coloured acrylic granules from waste display products and levels, heats and presses them to produce new sheet material. The first-of-its-kind system enables acrylic to be reused multiple times without damaging its quality or appearance, supporting purpose-driven retailers like schuh with sustainability goals.
Using 190kg of end-of-life footwear risers, Floreeda has produced 450 new visually-dynamic kids’ footwear risers for use in schuh stores across the UK and Ireland, including Birmingham Bullring, London Oxford Circus, Dublin Dundrum, Leicester Fosse Park and Edinburgh St James. When they are no longer fit-for-purpose, the risers can then be returned to Floreeda and recycled again for future use.
Customers in-store are able to find out more about the process by scanning the QR codes on the new risers in store.
Kathryn Masterman, Visual Merchandising at schuh, commented: “Our goal as a business is to do more good. That’s why we team up with partners like Floreeda – it helps us get smarter about how we use materials, extend their life, and track and reduce our carbon footprint.”
Paul Jones, Managing Director at Floreeda, added: “Acrylic can’t be recycled in the same way as other plastics, so we’ve been exploring a sustainable alternative for some time. It was a pleasure to welcome the schuh team to our workshop to show them samples and discuss the partnership. Thanks to the bright colouring of the materials generated through the REFLO process, we all agreed they would be perfect for their kids’ shoe displays. We’ve loved collaborating with a forward-thinking retailer like schuh and being part of the brand’s continuous efforts to conserve energy and source goods and services that are better for the environment.”
