This morning, I ran in the
Go Commando 5K Adventure Race. It was a lot of fun, very messy, but overall a good time. During the race you encounter numerous obstacles and a few of them can ruin your shoes. Those shoe killing obstacles include running through part of a swamp, running in a muddy track, a water slide, jumping over fire and then running through the large mud pit right before the finish line. As I said, very messy.
After finishing the race I went to get cleaned up at the changing tents, and outside the changing tents I saw a place where you could recycle your shoes. I forgot the company's name that was doing this, but needless to say there were a lot of shoes in the pile, and it was not even half way though race day. I imagine that at the end of the day they would have several 100 pairs. After I saw that pile of shoes I started thinking about how they would have to be taken somewhere to be processed and cleaned, and cut up and pulverized and then maybe cleaned again and then treated somehow to make them ready to be reformed into new shoes or possibly something completely different. It just seems like so much work to go through for something that, after that whole process, might have little to no impact on the environment. What if there was a different way to make shoes? That didn't mean more processing and even recycling, but just a natural method with natural products?
And those questions can be answered by a company I came across the other day. It's a company called
Industry of All Nations. "In April 2010, Industry of All Nations became a design and development office founded with a commitment to rethink methods of production for consumer goods and to connect local manufacturing with world fashion." (copied from their website
here.) One of the projects they have are biodegradable shoes, the Espadrille. Apparently designed back in 1907 Brazil, now being updated with a hightop version. The shoes look very simple, practical, and would make an easy entrance into the summer weather casual to semi-casual shoe category. I bet after you break them in the jute sole just becomes and extension of your own, would be curios to try them.
Granted, the Espadrille is definitely a fashion shoe and probably wouldn't do too well in an obstacle course 5K, but the fact remains that there are more eco-friendly methods available to produce and get rid of shoes.
Images taken from Industry of All Nations at http://www.industryofallnations.com/High-Top-Espadrilles-ccid_81.aspx.
