The circle of it: This lifestyle brand creates a novel “yarn” using single-use plastic bottles and turns them into artfully-designed shoes and other lifestyle products
Rothy’s
Summary
Rothy’s takes a significant waste material (single-use plastic bottles) and turns them into beautiful lifestyle products. The company uses a proprietary 3D knitting process to create flexible and comfortable shoes from the plastic bottles, and has significantly reduced material waste since its inception. The company has also experimented with using other novel materials like algae-based foam, hemp fibers, castor beans and other natural solutions into its various products. The company has also announced a take-back program such that old worn out shoes are accepted back and incorporated back into its manufacturing cycle.
Story
Founders Roth Martin and Stephen Hawthornthwaite launched their fashionable footwear brand to help reduce plastic waste while making a washable, easy to wear shoe that was also comfortable. They created a signature thread made from recycled plastic water bottles and knitted them using 3D technology in their company-owned factory in China. The founders saw an opportunity to create an “athleisure shoe” that was fashionable but comfortable at the same time; the founders noticed that what was considered fashionable tended to be uncomfortable and what was comfortable tended to be pedestrian and not fashion forward. The challenge was to create a product that married comfort with style but keeping it sustainable at the same time.
Pic credit: Rothy’s (right and top)
“This company was built fundamentally different than most companies, in that we built it from the ground up with a DNA that encompassed sustainability. It’s not just a material story, what we’re doing at Rothy’s. It’s the whole ecosystem. So, yes, it includes sustainability from a material standpoint, but really the whole company, in terms of our whole brand approach, starts on the supply chain with us owning our entire factory and every product we make.”
Roth Martin in an interview
Founder(s)
Roth Martin and Stephen Hawthorthwaite
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
In business since
2016
Technology
Creating a novel thread our of single-use plastic bottles; creating 3D technology to weave thread into shoes, using other biomaterials in products, implementing take-back schemes to reduce waste even further
Impact
According to Rothy’s website, since it’s inception, more than 146 million single-use plastic bottles have been turned into their signature thread, and more than 493,000 pounds of ocean- bound marine plastic have been repurposed to be used in their products
The Circular People 
Leave a comment