Low-cost, high-quality design, modular shoes made out of upcycled plastic waste

Website:https://salubataofficial.com/

Founded year: 2018

Focus area: Plastics upcycling

Business model: B2C

Applications: Shoes & Apparel design

Country HQ: Nigeria

YOUR JOURNEY TO FUNDING 

I went to the University of Lagos, where I studied environmental toxicology and pollution management at a bachelor and master level. I also worked as an environmental scientist for a few years, and with my co-founder we have now been designing shoes for about 5 years. Before starting Salubata, we were making shoes from leather. Any time we would sell a pair of shoes, we would bring them to courier companies, who would weigh them before dispatching them. We operated like an online platform. 

We noticed that the weight of those shoes varied between 0.4 and 0.5kgs. From my personal studies, I knew that an average American produces about 0.5kgs of plastic waste daily. And I connected the two facts. I thought: if the weight of this shoe equals the weight of the waste an average American produces, what not converting that waste into a shoe? 

There are over 381 million tonnes of plastic wastes produced each year, and only a small part - about 9% of it - gets ever recycled. We still see 5 trillion plastics floating in our oceans today. We have an urgent problem - a lot of plastic waste in the environment. We decided to find a solution by combining shoe design with environmental science to imagine how to convert plastic waste into footwear.

“We decided to find a solution by combining shoe design with environmental science to image how to convert plastic waste into footwear”

The global footwear market is massive, today valued at around 264 billion dollars and expected to be at 564 billion dollars by 2027. So we saw an opportunity in this problem - that’s why we decided to occupy this niche of low-cost, high-quality plastic-recycled shoes. Making a profit while benefiting people and the planet. At the moment, apart from us co-founders, we have nine artisans working with us.

THE INNOVATION

What does your production process look like?

We currently work with recycling companies to get the waste directly from them. After the collection, plastic wastes are shredded with a machine, the resulting particles are heated and made into yarns, which are then used for the patterns to make the shoes. We realised that also Adidas, Nike and other brands would use recycled plastics in their shoes, so we thought we could do something much more interesting to step up this innovation. 

Is it then when you thought about making these shoes modular?

Exactly, that’s how the modular concept came about. The first consideration was about the cost. When we were selling leather shoes, we used to have a lot of admirers, but not as many buyers because of how expensive leather products are. There we started to think about how to make these shoes with a lower cost. Right now, you pay 44.14 dollars for a pair of shoes, and that comes with modular components. By just having one sole and many different upper parts of the shoe, you already have a lower footprint. You can just zip them apart, attach a new design and keep walking. Also convenience mattered. When people travel, they don’t like having too many luggages. With our design, you can bring two pairs of shoes while occupying no space.

What feedback have you been receiving from (potential) customers?

We realized that the fact that the shoes are made from plastic waste is not what people notice at first. They give priority to cost, design, and convenience - only after they think about the environment. First they see the design, and later they get the circular component that these shoes are made of recycled plastic waste. Not many people are educated about the environment or even concerned about it. We offer a good design, while educating people to be conscious about what’s going on in the environment and how to keep it safe and clean. But we realized that no matter how environmentalist your buyer might be, if the design is not good, they won’t buy your shoes.

“No matter how environmentalist your buyer might be, if the design is not good, they won’t buy your shoes”

When it comes to the durability of the shoes, does the fact that they are made out of plastic waste have a negative impact?

Durability is a crucial factor. Considering our target group—people between 20 to 40 years old, with a low to medium level of disposable income —they are very concerned about the fact that they want to use products that last long. They don’t want shoes that might get destroyed while walking in three months. The product life we put on the product itself is one year. 

Then there is always the question: if people keep changing the upper part of the shoe, does it get destroyed more easily? This is something we take into account into our production process. That’s why we have considered using alga bloom with our soles, because it is a natural component that can be recycled. The shoes we sell are highly comfortable and they last long.

FUTURE PLANS

We are currently seeking an equity investment to scale our production. Right now, we produce around 120-140 shoes per month - and we’ve bootstrapped this via personal funding until today. We want to produce a minimum of 40,000 shoes per month, so that we’ll be able to meet the demand of people. We don't want them to wait again before they get our beautiful shoes. And that will also enable us to spread our message globally. As a nigerian company, we cannot do international crowdfunding, we can only raise money from family and friends. So the way forward is an equity investment that will allow us to produce between 500 thousand and 1 million shoes per year. That is our goal. 

Are you currently selling only in Nigeria or also internationally?

We sell globally. We have primarily consumers from Nigeria, Europe and also the US. But, more importantly, we have a lot of partners from the US that are selling our products, so we are really selling from these three continents. Going forward, we want to be able to sell our products everywhere in the world and we want that to be synonymous with helping people live and enjoy our products in a better world.

What are your plans in terms of new product(s) development?

We have a patent on our invention. So far, we have only one design and two colours for our shoes. So we want to increase the range of colours and improve the design. Aside from just making shoes from plastic waste, we also want to be able to produce other lifestyle products, like clothes. We want to increase the circularity of our operations, to be able to get as much plastic out of the environment as possible and keep it in our production and consumption cycles. 

VALUE IN CIRCULAR TRANSITION

We believe we are making a very significant change, particularly from an environmental viewpoint, because the volume of plastic waste in our environments keeps growing every year. Plastic wastes are everywhere in our streets and—when it rains—they create all sorts of problems by blocking the drainages. So, our first contribution is helping communities living in a safe and clean environment, and so also making people more environmentally conscious than before.

We also want to show the economic potential of such solutions. The global footwear and lifestyle markets are huge. It’s our mission to provide quality shoes and lifestyle products that help people and the planet while making a profit. We show what value you can create by integrating design, environment, education and profit. We believe our message will inspire many other startups around the globe to be able to jump on projects that can foster prosperity on and for our planet.

“We show what value you can create by integrating design, environment, education and profit”

Apart from an environmental and economic impact, you also aspire to have a social impact, right? 

Yes. We realised that we wouldn’t have a real impact if we didn’t help the communities around us, because the downhill impact of these pollutants affects the people in underserved communities the most, especially women. So we decided to commit 5% of the profits coming from every shoe to the cause of empowering women in these communities. With our plan to target 0.0005% of the global footwear market and create revenues of 132 million dollars per year, we would be able to contribute 6.6 million of our profits to the cause of helping women every year. And we would also offset over 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum.

You are really integrating the three spheres—environmental, economic and social—with a systemic vision. What do you want to achieve in the next few years?

We are a really ambitious company. We know that there are many people—like environmentalists and conservationists—who don’t get value for the amazing work they do. We want to be able to get a lot of value, and our ambition is to be valued as a unicorn company in about 5 years time, while helping to save the environment. Creating great economic value while doing what we are doing. 

A final message you wish to share?

To everybody interested in the circular economy space, I would say this is a very challenging space, but also full of opportunities. We shouldn’t just jump on it because the UN says that’s our goal by 2030. It is an ongoing journey. For me, it was really about connecting a lot of dots and facts together, and I could do this efficiently due to previous and current roles as both environmental scientist and shoe designer. For other people, it might be a different game. But it’s key to try to work in this way, while having a great team around you. Our team of highly intelligent people—with great skill sets necessary for scale—has provided us with great inputs to grow and be able to do what we are doing. It’s important to help people, but also to have enough funds to grow the company, because only in this way you can keep helping people.

October 2020

A conversation between Fela Buyi & Emanuele Di Francesco