Adidas x Parley: The 2015 Ocean Plastic Sneaker and What Followed

Adidas and Parley’s 2015 Sneaker Made From Ocean Plastic

In 2015 Adidas and the environmental group Parley for the Oceans unveiled a concept running shoe at the United Nations in New York whose upper was knitted from plastic recovered from the sea, including illegal deep-sea gillnets. It was a prototype, not a product you could buy, and despite many headlines it was not made "entirely" from ocean trash: only the upper used recovered material, while the rest of the shoe was built from conventional components.

The idea did not stay a concept. Over the next few years Adidas turned it into a mass-produced line, making millions of pairs a year with "Parley Ocean Plastic". Here is how the first shoe was made, who was behind it, what followed, and what recycled ocean plastic can and cannot do about pollution.

How the prototype was made

According to Parley, the shoe was produced in six days with help from three partners: the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd, the green chemist John Warner and the designer Alexander Taylor. Its base was Adidas's Ultra Boost running shoe, and the upper was knitted from yarns and filaments spun from recycled ocean waste.

The green threads running through the knit came from gillnets. These large walls of netting are banned or restricted in many fisheries because they trap almost everything that swims into them. Adidas said the nets were recovered by Sea Shepherd during a 110-day campaign tracking an illegal fishing vessel off West Africa. Lost or abandoned nets are a particular problem: they keep catching fish, turtles and seabirds for years, a process known as ghost fishing.

The team behind the launch, photographed on a quayside covered in recovered netting. The image makes a simple point well: the raw material for the shoe came from fishing gear that had been doing harm in the water.

Who is behind Parley for the Oceans

Parley was founded in 2012 by Cyrill Gutsch, a designer who had worked for brands including Lufthansa, BMW and Adidas. He has said that a meeting with Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson pushed him towards ocean conservation. Parley describes itself as a network that brings together creators, brands and environmentalists, and its strategy is summed up in the acronym AIR: Avoid plastic where possible, Intercept plastic waste before it reaches the sea, and Redesign materials.

That third idea is central to Gutsch's argument that recycling alone will not solve the problem. In an interview at the time of the launch he said that ocean plastic pollution would only end if plastic itself were reinvented. Parley therefore promotes redesigning materials, not simply finding new uses for the old ones.

From one prototype to millions of pairs

Adidas executive Eric Liedtke said at the launch that the material did not have to be limited to footwear and could go into T-shirts, shorts and much more. That is broadly what happened. Adidas soon moved from the prototype to shoes on sale, and according to Parley the company made about 1 million pairs with Parley Ocean Plastic in 2017, 5 million in 2018 and 11 million in 2019, with around 15 million planned for 2020. The material also went into apparel such as shirts and socks.

Parley's collection network began in the Maldives and later expanded to places such as the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka. An important detail is where the plastic comes from: Parley's model centres on intercepting plastic on beaches, islands and in coastal communities before it washes out to sea, rather than fishing it from the open ocean. That is not a weakness; stopping plastic near the shore is one of the most effective ways to keep it out of the water. The partnership between Adidas and Parley reportedly ended in 2024.

The prototype on a bed of netting with the Manhattan skyline behind it, a nod to the United Nations event in New York where it was first shown.

How big is the ocean plastic problem?

Estimates vary, but roughly 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year, and other studies give ranges of about 5 to 14 million tonnes. Only around 9 percent of all the plastic waste produced from the 1950s to 2018 was ever recycled. Plastic does not rot like wood or paper; it breaks into ever-smaller pieces. The often-repeated "500 years" is a rough estimate that depends on the item: the Ocean Conservancy puts a foam cup at about 50 years and fishing line at about 600.

Fishing gear is a large part of the problem. An EU directive estimates that it makes up about 27 percent of marine litter found on European beaches, and abandoned nets can weigh several tonnes. This is why turning gillnets into a consumer product was such a strong symbol.

Can recycled sneakers really help the oceans?

The honest answer is: a little, and mostly by changing habits and supply chains rather than by cleaning the sea directly. Even tens of millions of shoes use a small fraction of the plastic that reaches the ocean every year. Recycled polyester also still sheds microfibres and, at the end of a shoe's life, usually ends up in landfill or incineration like any other plastic product.

Still, projects like this showed that collecting coastal plastic can be paid for, created jobs in collection programmes and pushed other brands to use recycled materials. The biggest gains come from producing less single-use plastic, improving waste collection in countries where much of it leaks into rivers and seas, and tackling lost fishing gear at the source.

Ocean cleanup projects follow the same logic. Boyan Slat's group The Ocean Cleanup, which once promised a 2016 launch, sent its first floating system to sea from San Francisco in September 2018 and has since deployed larger systems and river barriers called Interceptors. Experts note that less than 5 percent of ocean plastic ends up in the big garbage patches, with most of it on coastlines, so stopping plastic before it reaches the sea remains the priority.

What you can do

Buy fewer, longer-lasting clothes and shoes; the most sustainable product is the one you keep using.
Cut single-use plastics such as bags, bottles and takeaway packaging where you can.
Join or support beach and river cleanups, which stop plastic at the point where it enters the sea.
When you buy "recycled" products, check what percentage is actually recycled and where the material comes from.

Sources: Originally shared via The Mind Unleashed, with quotes from Fast Company Co.Exist and the Adidas press release; Parley for the Oceans: adidas x Parley; Wikipedia: Parley for the Oceans; Wikipedia: Plastic pollution; Wikipedia: The Ocean Cleanup. Product photos: Adidas Group.

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