BioShoes4All Meeting and Site Visit for Footwear and Post-Consumer Footwear Waste Characterization

On October 24, 2024, LIPOR hosted the 10th meeting for Measure 3.2.1: Management and Recycling Models for the Circular Economy, under the BioShoes4All Project, part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan funded by the Environmental Fund.

The event brought together several consortium partners involved in the measure's activities, where updates on ongoing work were presented, including demonstrations of tested applications for incorporating footwear waste, prototypes of produced materials, and planning of upcoming activities for the next months.

Partners also had the opportunity to observe the physical characterization work of footwear and post-consumer footwear waste conducted by LIPOR since early 2024. This initiative aims to identify the types of footwear collected, assess their apparent quality for potential reuse, and analyze the materials used (such as leather, plastic, rubber, textile, among others) in both the upper part and sole of the footwear.

The footwear and post-consumer footwear waste under study is sourced from unsorted municipal waste circuits collected in the eight municipalities served by LIPOR, as well as from selective collection bins in public spaces, managed by private collection operators. This characterization work, spanning four sampling periods (spring-summer and autumn-winter seasons), will continue through the end of 2025.