Vincent Bia, manager of Bia Supplies in Calais, a company specialized in the sale of personal protective equipment, has registered the Takapas brand, specialized in the recycling of safety shoes. In France it is the only one to have faced this market. [Takapas, une marque déposée qui recycle les chaussures de sécurité - La Gazette Nord-Pas de Calais]
In Takapas, nearly 20,000 pairs of safety shoes are already recycled every year: they are crushed to become recovered solid fuel.
"At Bia Supplies we sell personal protective equipment and wanted to offer complementary services to our customers. We thought about what we could do and it was when we discovered that 8 million pairs of safety shoes were thrown away and not recycled, every year in France, that I told myself that we had to act", introduces Vincent Bia, manager of the Calais company.
From there Takapas was born, a registered trademark that recovers the safety shoes used in companies and recycles them to produce recovered solid fuels (RSF). This fuel is then used to supply, among other things, cement plants and boilers. "Today, 20% of the shoes are recycled, speaking in particular of metal parts, for example. The rest is reduced to gasoline," the manager explains.
Takapas has recently received help from Grand Calais Terres et Mers, ADEME and the Region. A contribution of 90,000 euros should therefore allow the manager to go further in the recycling of safety shoes. "Our great task is to succeed in moving to a circular economy. My dream would be to remake the safety shoes as new, but there are too many production standards to meet. So, we are already going to see how to make the soles that are in safety shoes", announces Vincent Bia. Thanks to the scholarship, the leader started a research in the laboratory to find the right formula for this product. "These studies will allow us to better re-evaluate the material, but also to quantify the necessary deposits."
Nearly 20,000 pairs of safety shoes are recycled every year. A figure that should grow in the coming years, driven by regulations. "The AGEC law obliges companies, by 2025, to recycle all waste for which there is a recovery channel. We have just created this sector for shoes," concludes Vincent Bia. To accompany him in this project destined to grow, the manager wants to hire new workers. Therefore, a project manager position is currently available.
