Is there an after for your sneakers?

I polish it, I polish it!

When a pair of Meeko leaves our warehouse and lands at your feet, it's up to you to make it more durable. While we go out of our way to make sure you want and can keep these sneakers for a long time, we can't force you to pamper them. On the other hand, we can give you all the good advice relating to the maintenance of our sneakers:

1. Avoid putting them in a box, no basketball supports being trampled on and smeared with alcohol and dirt.😊
2. Once you disobey advice number 1, don't panic and don't throw your Meeko in the trash, it would be a mistake, a big mistake. Find the Cinderella in you and with the right products everything will be fine.
3. Take a special sneaker cleaner. We really like the “ Andrée Jardin ” products made in France with recycled/non-polluting raw materials . It's a small investment that will allow you to keep your sneakers much longer and better support when you are stepped on in the subway. (which happens more often than you think.)
4. If you can protect your trainers upstream, that's even better. There are products to waterproof your sneakers and therefore first of all to keep your feet dry, but above all to protect your shoes from any indelible stains. The waterproofing agent deposits a film on the whole of the sneakers and limits the incrustation of stains as much as possible.

You can find very simple tutorials on the site of “mister shoe”, here .

Here is the basis for maintaining your sneakers and keeping them clean and beautiful for a long time. The quality of the raw materials and the assembly guarantees solid sneakers. Besides, we tend to change sneakers well before they are completely dead (soles that come off, hole in the textile part, etc.). We rather separate it when the dirt is unrecoverable. By pampering your sneakers, you therefore push back their expiry date. So we say to ourselves that if in addition to offering you timeless, comfortable and solid sneakers, you play the maintenance game on your side, we will be good for really durable sneakers and less production, only adapted to real needs. of our customers.

So long my friend

After a beautiful love story, it's unfortunately time to say goodbye to your Meeko sneakers. The end of life is a real subject because it represents a large part of the pollution linked to the basketball industry.

Two situations are considered:

1. You got tired of your Meeko who are no longer very young anyway.
2. You scoured the earth with them and even the best cobbler couldn't bring them back to life.

For sneakers that are still in wearable condition, there are many solutions. We warmly invite you to donate them to an association such as Emmaus , La Fiber du Tri , Le Secours Populaire , La Croix Rouge , etc. More and more sites also offer second-hand products ( Vinted ), some even specializing in sneakers ( The Sole House ). Promote the circular economy. 😊

The main challenge for us concerns the pairs that have nothing more to offer: how do we get them and what do we do with them? If the collection logistics are not (too) complex to set up in Paris, it is very complicated for the rest of France. Are you asked to return the sneakers to us at your expense? No, where then in exchange for a credit with us (what do you think?). Are you being asked to return them to us at our expense? Why not, but given our margins, it seems complicated. One solution would be to set up a collection point in each major city. We could thus transport the used pairs in groups to our Parisian warehouse, which would limit the carbon footprint as well as the logistics costs.

Once we have recovered your old sneakers, it remains to be seen what we do with them. Sneakers are extremely complicated products to recycle given the nature of the materials and the assembly method. The first step towards recycling is to work with materials that facilitate the process (natural and/or recyclable). The second is to favor an assembly without glue, with more sewing. The M Mustache brand has developed a great recycling program from which we draw inspiration. Only one factory in Europe (it is German) offers the recycling of sneakers. We hope to be able to work with her quickly and, thanks to the know-how of our Portuguese workshop, to offer a collection made from old recycled Meeko. In the meantime, we are thinking about a short series of sneakers created from offcuts from our first collection.

To be informed of our future initiatives related to the end of life of our sneakers, join the newsletter just below.

Thanks for reading. 😊

See you soon,

The Meeko team