Bus recycling deal puts seats on feet

The limited edition basketball-style trainers are the creation of TRiP – Transport Recycling in Partnership – a business that has been formed to re-use and recycle transport industry waste.

The TRiP trainers are made from 100 per cent recycled materials, including tyre rubber and moquette from FirstGroup’s London bus fleet and London Underground. They are the first of a range of recycled fashion items, including bags, planned by the two companies.

“Today we launched one of the ‘greenest’ trainers on the market made from 100 per cent UK waste,” said Robert Taylor-Read, Projects director at TRiP. “Not only are the uppers made from reclaimed and restored rail and bus seat fabrics, the soles contain recycled tyre rubber. In addition, we have incorporated high quality napa leather in the trim, using re-purposed chequebook wallets from a high street bank.”

FirstGroup, the world’s leading transport company and the UK’s largest bus and rail operator, said the partnership with TRiP formed part of its waste management programme and demonstrated its commitment to sustainability and the benefits of improved environmental management.

Last year, the company launched its Climate Change Strategy, in which it committed to reducing its bus and rail operations’ carbon dioxide emissions by, respectively, eight percent and 10 per cent on 2006 levels by 2012.

“We are delighted to be supporting TRiP in this imaginative and innovative initiative to find new and sustainable uses for materials that the transport industry has traditionally thrown away to landfill or incinerated,” said chief executive of FirstGroup, Sir Moir Lockhead. “We hope that the good work done by TRiP will inspire and educate others to change their perception of waste and look again at the materials in all of our personal and working lives which we throw away when they still could provide a service to us.”

Under the partnership, FirstGroup will also support TRiP in the research and development of other processes and techniques to divert transport waste from landfill and incineration into other sustainable secondary uses.

The designer recycled trainers are part of TRiP's Above + Below London footwear brand, created to help demonstrate the concept of re-using transport seat fabric in footwear and backed by Dame Vivienne Westwood who created a pair of elevated court shoes from recycled materials that were displayed at the London College of Fashion’s ‘Is Green the New Black’ exhibition last year.
 
“Transport Recycling in Partnership (TRiP) delivers exciting and innovative environmental projects to inspire and capture people’s imagination,” said Taylor-Read. “To have the world’s leading transport operator support us is a tremendous boost for the business.”