Primal Soles is developing recyclable and circular footwear solutions that aim to replace disposable hotel slippers and reduce plastic waste across the hospitality sector.
The hospitality industry is exploring new ways to reduce its dependence on single-use products, and Dutch footwear company Primal Soles is targeting one often-overlooked source of waste: disposable hotel slippers.
Primal Soles has developed circular footwear solutions designed to provide hotels with an alternative to conventional single-use slippers. Its approach combines renewable materials, product recovery and recycling to keep footwear materials in use for longer rather than sending them to landfill or incineration.
One of the company’s key products is its Primal Slippers, which are made using cork supplied by Amorim Cork Solutions along with recycled materials. After use, the slippers can be collected and returned for recycling, with recovered material incorporated into new products. This closed-loop model is intended to reduce the amount of waste generated by disposable hospitality footwear.
Cork plays an important role in the company’s material strategy. Harvested from the bark of cork oak trees without cutting down the trees, cork is renewable and recyclable. Primal combines the material with other recovered inputs to develop footwear designed for hospitality environments, where comfort, hygiene and durability remain important requirements.
The company has also worked with hotels to demonstrate how a circular collection system can operate in practice. At Hotel Jakarta in Amsterdam, Primal has been running a pilot involving its cork slippers, while the company says its system allows used footwear to be recovered and recycled instead of following the conventional disposable model.
Primal’s wider portfolio extends beyond hotel slippers. The company has developed circular cork insoles and biodegradable flip-flops, reflecting its broader goal of reducing the environmental impact associated with conventional footwear. Its newer Fløps range, developed with Amorim Cork Solutions, uses a proprietary Cork Polymer Compound and is designed around durability, washability, recyclability and bio-based materials.
The company’s approach comes as the wider footwear industry faces increasing pressure to address material waste and difficult end-of-life management. Globally, the footwear sector produces billions of pairs each year, while the use of multiple materials and components can make recycling particularly challenging.
For hotels and other hospitality businesses, circular footwear could provide a way to combine guest amenities with sustainability objectives. Instead of treating slippers as products intended for a single use, collection and recycling programmes can create a system in which materials are recovered and returned to production.
Primal’s work demonstrates how redesigning relatively small hospitality products can contribute to broader circular-economy goals. By focusing on renewable materials, longer material lifecycles and take-back systems, the company is seeking to reduce plastic waste while creating a more resource-efficient model for hospitality footwear.