1Hi Don.
2Did you get the copy of the article on recycling footwear that I emailed you?
3Yeah it's here...
4I've had a look at it.
5So do you think it's a good topic for our presentation?
6Well, before I started reading it, I thought recycling footwear...
7well, although it's quite interesting, perhaps there isn't enough to say about it,
8cos we put shoes in recycling bins, they go to charity shops and that's about it.
9But there's much more to it than that.
10I realise that now and I'm keen to research the topic more.
11That's great.
12One of the things I didn't realise until I read the article was just how many pairs of trainers get recycled!
13Well, a lot of young people wear them all the time now.
14They've become more popular than ordinary shoes.
15I know.
16I guess they are very hard-wearing,
17but don't they look a bit casual for school uniform?
18I don't think they're right for that.
19Actually, I think some of them look quite smart on pupils...
20Better than a scruffy old pair of shoes.
21So do you keep shoes a long time?
22Yes.
23Though I do tend to wear my old pairs for doing dirty jobs like cleaning my bike.
24I must admit,
25I've recycled some perfectly good shoes, that haven't gone out of fashion and still fit,
26just because they don't look great on me anymore.
27That's awful, isn't it?
28I think it's common because there's so much choice.
29The article did say that recent sales of footwear have increased enormously.
30That didn't surprise me.
31No.
32But then it said that the amount of recycled footwear has fallen:
33it's 6% now compared to a previous level of 11%.
34That doesn't seem to make sense.
35That's because not everything goes through the recycling process.
36Some footwear just isn't good enough to re-sell, for one reason or another, and gets rejected.
37So let's find some examples in the article of footwear that was rejected for recycling.
38Okay.
39I think there are some in the interview with the recycling manager.
40Yeah... here it is.
41Let's start with the ladies' high-heeled shoes.
42What did he say about those?
43He said they were probably expensive.
44The material was suede and they were beige in colour.
45It looked like someone had only worn them once, but in a very wet field
46so the heels were too stained with mud and grass to re-sell them.
47Okay...
48And the leather ankle boots.
49What was wrong with them?
50Apparently, the heels were worn
51but that wasn't the problem.
52One of the shoes was a much lighter shade than the other one.
53It'd obviously been left in the sun.
54I suppose even second-hand shoes should look the same!
55Sure.
56Then there were the red baby shoes.
57Oh yes...
58we're told to tie shoes together when we put them in a recycling bin,
59but people often don't bother.
60You'd think it would have been easy to find the other, but it wasn't.
61That was a shame because they were obviously new.
62The trainers were interesting.
63He said they looked like they'd been worn by a marathon runner.
64Yeah... weren't they split?
65Not exactly.
66One of the soles was so worn under the foot that you could put your finger through it.
67Well, we could certainly use some of those examples in our presentation to explain why 90% of shoes that people take to recycling centres or bins get thrown into landfill.
68What did you think about the project his team set up to avoid this by making new shoes out of the good parts of old shoes?
69It sounded like a good idea.
70They get so many shoes, they should be able to match parts.
71I wasn't surprised that it failed, though.
72I mean who wants to buy second-hand shoes really?
73Think of all the germs you could catch!
74Well, people didn't refuse them for that reason, did they?
75It was because the pairs of shoes weren't identical.
76They still managed to ship them overseas, though.
77That's another area we need to discuss.
78You know I used to consider this topic just from my own perspective,
79by thinking about my own recycling behaviour without looking at the bigger picture.
80So much happens once shoes leave the recycling area.
81It's not as simple as you first think,
82and we can show that by taking a very different approach to it.
83Absolutely.
84So let's discuss...