Shoes made with recycled materials... really?!

This is not my opinion but I work in advertising and marketing. The VAST majority of consumers these days want their purchases to be ‘socially conscious’ from the product to the packaging.

Is it virtue signaling? Maybe. But that is what is currently driving the market, from cosmetic brands to Nike to cat litter, and everything in between. From a strategic view, brands would be smart to veer in this direction if this is what consumers are asking for.

Most people would say ‘Yes, if everything else is equal, I really care whether my shoes r recycled or biodegradable.’

You are talking about a specialistic item (running shoes) where the main concern for the vast majority of the users is not where the materials are from but that:

1) the shoes dont cause you an injury
2) and hopefully they help you training harder and run faster

Sure after that then it is great they are made of recyclables...

Lol, op goes home devastated. You got mad because people want to be environmentally responsible when it's practical . . . Just let the absurdity of that reaction sink in.

I think you just signaled that you are not virtuous.

“My money better not help save the environment. Nyah!”

"Most people would say ‘Yes, if everything else is equal, I really care whether my shoes r recycled or biodegradable.’"

Is this such a hard concept to understand OP?

Do the already biodegraded take biodegradability for granted? The rest of us and our progeny also need to use this planet.

We don't really have an effective way of disposing and recycling it that doesn't just lead us in a circle back to using it again and again. We end up in this "plastic dump," and other non-recyclable items there, too, like styrofoam. So, I think that to solve the plastic waste problem, we need to start by looking at what we're using and why we're using it. Also, a good way would be to use Biodegradable Packaging Materials. On the other hand, I'm sure you've seen those reusable water bottles with filters inside them, so you can drink tap water. Maybe if we started using those instead of buying bottled water all the time, we wouldn't have such a big plastic waste problem on our hands.

In almost all contexts, plastics are better for the environment than most "natural," biodegradable substitutes. Plastics require a tiny fraction of the energy to produce. They also have less impact on local environments (paper and wool, for instance, require huge amounts of land).

To the extent that there's a plastic problem, it's not really in the first world. The real problem is that the developing world doesn't have modern waste management systems to ensure that waste is properly moved and stored. That's why so much ends up in the oceans.

Also, the fact that plastic doesn't readily decompose is a good thing under present conditions. If it decomposes, it releases its stored carbon. It's better to bury that carbon than to let it into the atmosphere. And we have plenty of space to bury it.

The anti-plastic trend in recent years reminds me a great deal of opposition to nuclear energy. Both are high-tech and "unnatural," so inherently suspect to environmentalists, even though shifting away from them actually hurts the environment.

Every shoe ever made, unless recycled, is still intact in a landfill somewhere. Same for every plastic shopping bag, toothbrush, water bottle, gel packet, …etc.

That’s how we ended up with micro plastics in our water and food supply, and most recently micro plastics literally in our bloodstream.
I don’t see us moving away from single use plastics any time soon, so being biodegradable is a big deal.
(I think Brooks and Saucony are now mostly making biodegradable shoes Fwiw).