From bottle stoppers to shoes - Return-It has launched a pilot project in Kelowna to recycle wine corks into footwear.
CEO Allen Langdon says, "Cork is a carbon negative material that can be repurposed into new consumer items like footwear where it can help replace petroleum based foams and plastics. Once consumers have dropped off their used, natural wine corks at Return-It's Boucherie Self Storage and Bottle Depot in West Kelowna the material will be picked up and then sent to a partner ReCORK for processing and then used by another company SOLE to manufacture eco-friendly footwear products."
Langdon says the corks do need to be natural.
"Really we initiated this pilot program because we saw an opportunity to collect and recycle this really useful material and keep it out of our landfills. It's a pilot for now and then depending on the results we'll assess at a later date, in a year, and see if there's opportunities to expand it to other locations within the Return-It network."
Check out the eco-friendly footwear and maybe buy yourself a pair at yoursole.com.