Footwear retailer Schuh has announced a new partnership that involves using recycled footwear displays in its stores across the UK and Ireland.
The retailer has teamed up with Stockport-based acrylic manufacturer, Floreeda, to use the company’s recycled footwear displays – known in the industry as risers – in a move it said would reduce its carbon usage.
Floreeda has collected Schuh’s end-of-life risers and used its proprietary recycling technology, called Reflo, to transform the acrylic into a fresh display product, reducing Schuh’s requirement for new in-store display materials.
The Reflo process generates 4mm clear and coloured acrylic granules from waste display products, before levelling, heating and pressing them to produce new sheet material. Its existence means acrylic can be reused multiple times without damaging its quality or appearance, according to Floreeda.
For Schuh, Floreeda has used 190kg of end-of-life footwear risers to produce 450 new kids’ footwear risers for use in stores across the UK and Ireland, including its flagship Birmingham Bullring, London Oxford Circus, Dublin Dundrum, Leicester Fosse Park and Edinburgh St James locations. When no longer fit-for-purpose, the risers are returned to Floreeda and recycled again for future use.
In-store customers can find out more about the recycled footwear display process by scanning the QR codes on the risers.
Kathryn Masterman, visual merchandising manager at Schuh, said: “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, commented: “Acrylic can’t be recycled in the same way as other plastics, so we’ve been exploring a sustainable alternative for some time.
“With Reflo, we are in a position to support our customers across a variety of sectors with a means to recycle and repurpose their waste acrylic products and off-cuts.”
Read more about Schuh on Green Retail World
[image credits: Floreeda]
