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Ordered a pair of Air Maxes online and they don’t quite fit? The typical solution would be to return them—no harm, right? A new German investigative documentary, however, beseeches customers to question where their barely-used sneakers might end up.
In the public service-sponsored documentary SneakerJagd (meaning Sneaker Hunt), a German investigative team set out to learn more about the sustainability practices of Nike, who’s positioned itself as an active player in creatively recycling footwear for a circular economy.
It’s no secret that shoppers can donate used, unwanted sneakers through collection boxes in Nike’s retail stores to be ground-up and repurposed into materials for products, basketball courts, and playgrounds. This program, called Nike Grind, is part of the sportswear giant’s Move to Zero campaign for zero waste and zero carbon emissions in its future.
Only thing: not all of the shoes turned quite literally into dust are at the end of their lives. In fact, some might not even have defects, according to SneakerJagd. If these findings are true, the company could be breaking a law newly implemented in Germany that bans brands from destroying products that are still usable, and could receive a fine of up to €100,000 (US$112,850).
The first step was to find out where the Nike Grind process takes place for sneakers returned in Germany. The team was told by Nike that they’d be sent to Meerhout, Belgium, so it attached GPS trackers to old sneakers and “returned” them in collection boxes across the country. The devices pointed investigators to a small town 30 minutes away from Meerhout by car.
The team got there and found a facility labeled as a “pre-treatment facility for the recycling of clothing.” Open windows allowed the investigators to peer in and see employees shredding sneakers through a large machine. The visitors were also able to enter the recycling center under different identities, according to the documentary.
“It was open, so you [could] just enter the whole place,” journalist Christian Salewski detailed in a statement published by Fast Company. “There were workers loading boxes on a table. That was the first time we thought, ‘What is this?’ Because they were all brand-new shoes.”
The next time around, the investigators donated brand-new sneakers they had just purchased for the experiment. The team made sure the products were in perfect condition and “didn’t have a scratch,” said Salewski, with the only alteration being the addition of the GPS tracker (Nike later used this “tampering” to justify its stance). The footwear turned up at the same Meerhout center.
The team once again visited the facility without revealing its true identities, and were told by workers that they were hired to sort and break down shoes only for Nike. The employees also said many of the sneakers sent to the premises were in almost-new condition, and that they even saved some of the shoes that were “too nice to destroy.”
The investigators claimed that they saw many return labels and seemingly brand-new sneakers at this place too.
When probed by the team, Nike explained in a German statement that products that are defective, counterfeit, for testing, and “aren’t in the right condition” are also processed in this plant. The company added that if it discovers “evidence of use or defects” in donated footwear, it would be shredded too. Meanwhile, “new and unworn product is put back on the shelves.”
Responding to this documentary, a spokesperson for Nike told Highsnobiety: “To keep athletes safe and performing with confidence, all footwear returns are analyzed for damage or tampering. Returned products that exhibit signs of damage or unacceptable wear are sent for recycling.”
Nike used media coverage citing the documentary to back its assertion that “a new Nike performance basketball shoe was ordered from nike.com, cut open and tampered with when a GPS tracker was inserted into the product before being returned.” It warned that manipulating a product could “pose a safety hazard for athletes and consumers if resold,” making it necessary for the footwear to be shredded.
The brand stressed that “the vast majority” of returned sneakers are “resold.”
Nike also said it is continuously looking for opportunities to “do more in service of the planet.” One initiative besides Nike Grind is the new Refurbished program in the US, where “gently-worn” sneakers are polished to be as good as new, and then resold at lower prices. A pilot for this initiative will commence next month in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
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