Xinca Eco Shoes
Sustainability

This is how used tyres become shoes

7 March Mar 2018 1202 07 March 2018
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Xinca is an Argentinian social enterprise that produces shoes recycling and reusing tyres and pieces of fabric. It includes in the production process people at risk of social exclusion, like inmates, single mothers and young people with drug problems

Xinca is a social enterprise that produces shoes recycling used tyres and pieces of fabric, and giving a job to people at risk of social exclusion, like inmates, and young people with drug problems.

Founded in 2013 by three friends, Alejandro Malgor, Ezequiel Gatti and Nazareno El Hom, Xinca is located in Mendoza, in the western part of Argentina.

“In Argentina alone, more than 100,000 tons are discarded causing a negative impact on the planet”, explains Alejandro Malgor, one of the three co-founders of Xinca, in the video here above on youtube.

In order to make the shoes, mainly sneakers, Xinca uses discarded tyres and collects waste from fabric coming from the fashion industry, the most polluting industry after the oil industry, and has established many partnerships with companies that donate the fabric to Xinca.

Not only the social enterprise helps the environment but also people because it includes in the production process subjects excluded from the job system: single mothers, convicts, people living in rural areas, young people with drug problems.

There is a collaboration with the penitentiary of San Felipe in Mendoza, and 80 of its convicts: Xinca has created a workshop in the penitentiary to teach inmates the job and tries to give them tools to reinsert them into society at the end of the sentence..

“To manufacture our sustainable sneakers we work with those who have less opportunities, people deprived of their liberty, social organizations and rural workshops”, explains Alejandro Malgor in the video. “We help them improve their quality of life, including them in the production process of some of our products”.

Xinca sells both online directly through its website both through the ethical fashion brand Patagonia. A pair of sneakers costs 890 Argentinian Pesos, that are equal to 36 Euros.

As Alejandro Malgor says: “ At Xinca we are creating a future where the trash we generate is turned into opportunities for everyone”.

At Xinca we are creating a future where the trash we generate is turned into opportunities for everyone.

Alejandro Malgor

Malgor continues: “We have already recycled 20.000 kg of discarded tyres and reused 2.500 kg of waste of fabric that would have been otherwise thrown away. Our short term objective is to recycle 55 tons of waste: this will allow us to continue to have a positive social and environmental impact. For this reason, we want to invite everyone to play a different role as consumers and understand the impact that our purchases have on the planet and on society”.

Xinca aims to motivate a new generation of entrepreneurs to create enterprises considering the creation of social and environmental value for everyone.

Photo: Facebook page Xinca Eco Shoes