GreenPlax Footwear

Press Kit

Unique Properties

Trying to protect the ecosystem and the environment, as well as to leave a beautiful mother earth for future generations, Ccilu spent 5 years developing GreenPlax technology. With GreenPlax technology Ccilu created the first-ever footwear collection made primarily out of plastic bottles retrieved from the oceans. The recycled plastic bottles are used for every major component in the shoes, including the uppers, insoles and outsoles.

Dimensions & Packaging

For Man's US 9: 11 mm x 29.5 mm x 10 mm for one foot. The main outsole material is "RPET" which is constituted by recycled plastic bottles from the ocean.

Tags

sustainability, recycle, reuse, re-purpose, Global warming, climate change, Eco-friendly, Ccilu, GreenPlax, Barefoot comfort

Production Technology

On average 1 pair of the GreenPlax footwear consumes 15 recycled plastic bottles. With SKIVE-ON technology, each pair of GreenPlax Renee footwear is bottomed-up with 100+ completely independent and highly resilient GreenPlax dots. The belief that both technology and lifestyle shall be sustainable has resulted in GreenPlax. A major milestone of the evolution of footwear industry.
The award-winning SKIVE-ON outsoles present the best experiences of super lightweight, barefoot comfort, flexibility, high resilience and great grip.

Design Challenge

We overcame the difficulty of material combination between RPET and EVA to make this impossible challenge become possible to invent the first RPET outsole in the world. Entirely made from recycled plastic bottles instead of requiring petrochemical raw materials to save natural resources and reduces the burden on the environment.

Research

As research, globally 1 million plastic bottles are thrown away every minute and only 4% of them are recycled. When dumped in landfills the leached toxins cause a variety of health issues including cancer. In their final destination, they kill the ocean and lives. GreenPlax is the first-ever sneaker with every major component (upper, insole, and outsole) primarily made from recycled plastic bottles, contrastively the other footwears are merely able to use them to make some uppers fabrics.

Inspiration

The (IPCC) Report concluded, "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century". The largest human influence has been the emission of greenhouse gases. Particularly more than one million plastic bottles are thrown away every minute globally and less than 4% of these are properly recycled. Others end up in landfills, lots are in the ocean eventually. Something has to be done to keep the ocean clean for future generations.

Project Duration

The project started in April 2014 in Taiwan and finished in August 2019 in Taiwan.

Operation Flow

Scientific application to this practical problem:
1. Sort and clean recycled plastic bottles retrieved from the ocean.
2. Shred the recycled plastic bottles into smaller pieces.
3. Breakdown the pieces into perfectly shaped pellets.
4. Melt down the pellets and turn them into fibers. Fibers make the threads. Threads make fabric. And the fabric makes the upper part of the shoe and the lining covering Ortholite insole.
5. Mix remaining pellets with EVA and turn them into a high-performance outsole.

Patents

For patents: "Patented. Patent Holder-Ccilu international. Year-2019. Jurisdiction-US."

Image Credits

Main visual : Photographer-Alvin Liu(Product manager) / Illustrator-Joseph Chang(Creative director) / Creator-Wilson Hsu(CEO)
Optional Image #No1~4 : Photographer-Alvin Liu(Product manager) / Illustrator-Joseph Chang(Creative director) / Creator-Wilson Hsu(CEO)