14 DAY TRIAL // Only yesterday, PUMA made it public news that, starting with its Spring/Summer 2013 collection, all the footwear, apparel or accessories that the company put on the market would be either biodegradable, or at least recyclable.
Apparently, the company first decided to take significant measures towards cutting down on its ecological footprint back in 2010, when its Environmental Profit and Loss Account indicated that 57% of the company's negative impact on the environment had to do with its using leather, cotton and rubber.
Should things go as planned, the year 2013 will offer PUMA's customers biodegradable Basket sneakers and shirts, as well as recyclable Track Jackets and backpacks.
The official website for the company quotes Franz Koch (i.e. CEO of PUMA), who commented on the InCycle collection as follows:
“While we have already implemented numerous initiatives to reduce PUMA's footprint on our mission to become the most desirable and sustainable Sportlifestyle company, the PUMA InCycle collection is the first step to help reduce the amounts of garbage that consumer products cause at the end of their lives.”
Furthermore, “We feel that we are responsible for the environmental impact out products cause and this innovative concept in sustainability is a first step towards our long-term vision of using innovative materials and design concepts for PUMA products that can be recycled in technical processes or composted in biological cycles.”
Due to its only using biodegradable polymers, recycled polyester and organic cotton, the InCycle collection also makes it possible for PUMA to say good-bye to pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other similar chemical compounds that pose significant threat both to the environment, and to public health.
Tests carried out by the company indicated that one shirt belonging to this new collection has an ecological impact reduced by 31% when compared to its conventional counterpart, which means that a whole bunch of them can really make a difference environmentally-wise.
Just for the record: the fact that some of the items PUMA will be selling in the not so distant future will be biodegradable does not meant that they will simply melt away once they become acquainted with rain or other similar natural phenomena.
Quite the contrary: customers will be required to return them to PUMA's stores, and trained personnel will take care of processing them.