Radical Recycling: Designer Brands Transforming Old Tire Rubber Into Beautiful Durable Shoes
August 23, 2012 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis Making footwear at Indosole.
Late summer and early fall are some of the best times for shoe fashions because they allow for such a diversity of styles, and always showing your love for the environment with your eco-choices in materials.
Sandals and beach shoes are still great, but you can also start on your fall styles with heaver materials like canvas, suede, and leather – and all made with rubber soles from recycled tires.
Always searching for the best variety of eco-made shoes, I found three fabulous companies – Indosole, soleRebel, and Yellow Port – that are worth taking a look at for their styles and commitments to the environment.
Indosole
Indosole is a fabulous Indonesian company that makes sandals and canvas beach shoes that all look great, and can be worn as part of everyday causal wear.
The materials used include banana leaves, burlaps, canvas, (man-made) vegan suede, and EVA-foam.
Photo courtesy of Indosole.
For those that don’t know much about materials, burlap is a woven fabric from the fibers of the jute plant, combined with other vegetable fibers. Canvas is a heavy-duty woven fabric usually made from cotton, linen (fibers made from the flax plant) or hemp fibers.
Vegan suede is made-made suede, usually made mostly of polyester and without using any animal products. Natural suede is a kind of animal leather.
Photo courtesy of Indosole.
EVA foam, also called ethylene vinyl acetate, has a lot of great qualities including that it’s soft and flexible, as well as really tough, crack resistant, and waterproof.
All of the soles are made from repurposed motorbike tires. The company exclaims that, “Indosole is on a mission to salvage old motorbike tires and other trash from landfills and give them new life.”
Indosole also boasts that its “products are handmade by skilled Balinese artisans and the production process does not contain fuel-powered machines.” The company adds that it “conducts fair trade practices in its workshops.”