Texon closer to zero-waste ambition by boosting renewable content
Shoe component supplier Texon has reengineered its Sportflex box toe puff with a minimum of 50% recycled content - up from around 4%.
The move forms part of Texon’s sustainability drive and its ambition to become a zero waste business by 2025.
Box toe puffs are inserted into shoes, between the lining and the upper, to help the footwear retain its form. Texon Sportflex is an extruded material that is used to create soft, flexible toes in lightweight footwear and deconstructed athletic shoes.
Texon has created eco and bio versions of Sportflex. Eco iterations of the material are based on post-industrial waste, while the bio version is based on sugar cane waste.
Boyd Mulder, director of sustainability at Texon, said: “Reducing our use of virgin materials by at least 50% by 2025 is one of our key zero waste ambitions. To achieve this, we are actively reviewing our existing product portfolio - identifying materials that can be re-engineered to make them more sustainable, without compromising the performance for which they are known.
“Through careful sourcing and joint development efforts our technical team has managed to significantly improve the sustainability of Texon Sportflex, creating next generation variants that are more closely aligned with our customers’ own environmental objectives.”
Image: Samples of Texon Sportflex
