With the focus in recent years turning heavily on the future of the world we live in and ways in which we can protect what we have, brands and people alike have been looking into ways we can reuse and reimagine resources.
Nike have just introduced their latest project known as Space Hippie. Space Hippie is an exploratory collection that uses their very own ‘Space Junk’ that comes from scraps of materials along there factory floors. With this project it has helped Nike produce their lowest carbon footprint scores ever.
This latest collection focusses on three key points. The upper is constructed using 100 percent recycled material, this ‘Space Waste Yarn’ as Nike like to call it, is a mixture of plastic water bottles, t-shirts and yarn scraps. This helps create an upper that, by weight is 90 percent recycled.
For the cushioning and outer sole, you still get Nikes famed ZOOMX foam but in a completely new way. Utilising factory scraps found within the production line of the Vaporfly 4%, Nike reprocesses the foam using half the CO2e that normal Nike foams will use, also carrying this idea through to the Crater Foam. Using a blend of Nike foam and a percentage of Nike Grind Rubber equals a reduction in virgin materials adding to this lower carbon footprint. This Ground Rubber also adds a special effect within the outsole creating an almost speckle effect.
With this latest collection, it brings attention to Nike’s designers who are exploring these new and inventive ways, and further exploring their own innovations and ways in which they can reuse the pieces that would normally be scrapped and therefore focussing on how things are made, used and reused.