LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - As the world's best badminton players travel home after the World Championships in Denmark, the sport's leading manufacturer Yonex (7906.T) told Reuters some of them were fighting it out for the first time in sneakers made partly from recycled materials.
In addition to appeasing environmentally conscious shoppers, the companies argue that switching to recycled materials helps reduce waste and their reliance on finite resources.
While developing the products, Yonex thought about how to blend materials in order to overcome the challenge of the physical properties of sustainable materials generally being different to traditional materials.
He added that sustainable materials currently cost more to use because suppliers mass-produce traditional materials.
Yonex said it uses sustainable materials in 83% of its apparel products, such as organic cotton or recycled fibers.
Persons:
Chen Yu Fei, Viktor Axelsen, Yonex, Shinichiro Chiba, Chiba, Taiwan's Victor, Richa Naidu, David Holmes
Organizations:
Reuters, Sports, Adidas, Badminton World Federation, Olympic, Thomson
Locations:
Denmark, Tokyo, China