So, I saved a cow, but have added to the landfill with shoes that are basically unwearable for any period of greater than say…2 minutes. I’m just wearing them for a desk job, so it’s not like I’m running, I just sit here and they start getting all sweaty and smelly.

Did you really need to submit such a reply?

One could argue that this isn’t the place for such informed and verbous opinion.

BTW I disagree with your plastic rants. Some plastic is infinitely recycleable and has low environmental impact post production. Wake up, plastics are everywhere. They are even in nature. Plastic like substances (like lacqeur from lac beetle secretions, numerous other animal and plant generated compounds).

Dean

I am intreaged by a site where people write about their efforts and passion for the environment and was just directed to this site by a very special friend. I am the director of the green building program in Pennsylvania and have spent most of my professional carreer - working on designing passive solar homesandbuildings using solar technologies, and just trying to figure out how to design buildings that use less or no energy, and use less water and generate less waste and pollution - and most recently - which also use natural materials vs man-made ones that often harm the environment. Our latest efforts involve designing buildings with no environmental impact- or which actually are not only carbon neutral-but are regenetarive- that are net produers and carbon neutral- while generating all of their needed energy from the sun and other renewable non-polluting forms of energy such as wind, solar thermal, solar PV, geothermal, etc - and some- with no carbon emmissions- and which use virtually no energy (Zero Energy Buildings). Its a pretty cool job -teaching and empowering people all over the state how to deploy age old prooven stuff like passive solar design (used in igloo and south facing earth bearmed barns I see all over my home state of PA - which have been standing for over 100 years - from these age old green conepts - to the latest wiz bang building technology, micro-scale windmill or home scale fuel cell powerplat - to an organtic veggie “bio” based bio-omposit green building material which is a green man-made replacement for some other conventional environmental damaging non-rapidly renewable- non recyclable, zero recyled content building material. When designing green buildings we frequently get caught up in the same dilemas that you have with your shoes, the “stuff” that is at the heart and soul of the articles I see on this website. There are some incredible tools out there for building professionals - to evaluate the total cradle to cradle (formerly cradle to grave) full life cycle cost and impact of green or not so green conventional building materials These amazing computer based evaluation tools such as the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) BEES software tool- or the AThena Institutes Life Cycle Acessment tool for building productsand materials - these new tools are stiving to actually quantify the issues you are wrestloing with- actually calculating the amount of embodied energy (ie oil and energy to make the plastic (oil) based building (or in your case - shoe vinyl) material, as well as the amout of energy used to extract that oil from the ground, the amount of energy requred to manufacture the raw materials and convert them into finished products, then the energy required to ship the product half way around the world. These tools also consider water use, waste water pollution, generation of waste streams and heavy metals and such - and much more. What I can see in reading the writings on this website - is that we need similar tools for the general public- which are capable of doing accurate evaluations of the true enviromental impact or benefits of all of the consemer goods that we buy. It is amazing that the same concepts and lessons learned from the green building and green materials market transformation, the stuff that is at the heart of what I now do as a nationally recognized greeen building expert - are amazingly - diretly transferrable to the decision making process assocuated with enviromentally concious purchasing and comparison of shoes we choose to wear and the clothes on our back. Generally - materials that are from locally made (not shipped long distance - ie (china/shoes), but rather - natural based repidly renewable based (agriculturally grown waste byproducts for example - like waste wheat straw, waste sawdust, cork, or waste corn husks,corn cob, or corn stalks, things like sugar cane waste),. These are all materials that could be used for shoes just as easlily as they are used for building materials and finishes.( Cork flooring -a very sustainable rapidly renewable building flooring material - is also an excellent material for laminating into shoe soles (arent Birkenstocks shoes made with wood and or Cork?? and Wool uppers?) Anyway- in addition to rapidly renewable raw materials - for either building materials or for clothing in this case - three are also available to you - shoes that might be - high recycled content matieraly - these sorts of products and shoes made of these things- will be far better than man-made vinyl leather shoes. Both rapidly renewable products which grow local agricultural economies - and the high recycled content materials- which support the recycling industry- are examples of ways to also grow your local and regional economy - vs supporting foreign, not so sustainable based products (China is probably the worst -in the coming years- future chineese generations - will end up paying for - after the fact- for the gross -possibly irreversable environmental damages that their very NON-sustainable- energy wasteful-pollution intensive manufacturing procceses that are the basis for China’s NON-SUSTAINABLE economy. The converse is a truly systainable ECONOMY - one that creates jobs -by growing green industry. and locally grown, locally manufactured green products. GREEN SHOES which like building and flooring materials - which could be made with rapidly renewable or recycled materials - will also support local economy and local farmers and local manufacturing - vs sending our dollars to China where they make toys and household products painted and tainted with lead and heavy metals that we are now learning - may be killing children and people all over the world. Are your shoes Green??? Which is less environmentally damaging? -a natural based material such as leather or some natural fabric such as cotton or wool -vs the more common a oil derived, plastic (PVC) vinyl-leather man made material - which - in the case of your shoes - is most likely a china based vinyl product - (PVC) which is one of the most environmentally damaging materials we know of in use in buildings. Most man-made leather productsare made from foreign based oil (plastic is oil)also most plastics are variations of PVC - and involve some pretty nasty and environemtally damaging materials-like Chorine. PVC is one of the absolute worst materials for the environment - despite the claims of the plastics industry - which is actually -one and the same as the oil industry - and we dont want to open that discussion…… I recently was at a green products expo -green building cleaning and maitenance products -green cleaners, 100% recycled content hand towels and 100% recycled content toilet paper, etc…. At this expo - I saw two very cool new products- one was a bio-based corn oil derived 100% natural, 100% recuyclable plastic plates and cups. The idea of agricultural waste to make cups and plates instead of using foreign crude oil is pretty cool. The only drawback is the process is still very energy intensive-to turn corn or soy /vegatable bio-based oil into plastic - takes lots of energy - embodied energy. The other very cool product was a product line of paper like plates and bowls - that were actually made from the waste that is left over from sugar cane and stuff that otherwise gets burned and turned onto carbon emmissions- which can now be used as a green material for making paper like plates. Waste equals food (McDonna) what a concept!!! Then, lastly - aside from the question of ARE YOURSHOES GREEN - there is also the societal and humanitarian issue- is it really neccessary to kill cows or other similar critters -Gods creatures, in order to make shoes. The original author seems to be most driven by his concern for these interesting docile living creatures -more-so then a concerm for the net environmental impact of say - a man made vinyl leather alternative. I see this humanitarian issue- the concept of not killing a wonderful animal for the sake of shoes (by the way - most shoe leather is horse leather not cow leather which is even a sicker concept - where I live -here in south centra PA there are huge farms - owned by Hanvoer Shoe company - whih raise HORSES - primarily for their hide-for leather making and shoe making. These wonderful creatures are raised- then killed for their hide - and then the meat is ground up and turned into canned dog food - now how much sense doesthat make??? Your writing about “are YOUR SHOES GREEN” makes me realize that -just like many of our much out-dated non-sustainalbe - environmentally harmful building practices and building materials- practices that need to be abandoned are much like the fact that our methods and materials for making shoes are quite archaic. Leather soled and leather upper made shoes, while perhaps stylish and comfortable - are “old tech” - we are talking cave man here- strapping animal hide on one’s foot? Actually - are leather shoes REALLY all that comfortable? Not really until they get fully broken in. Are there other natural materials that are just as durable and just as attractive - as leather - that we could make our shoes and clothing and accessories Wallets and handbags and coats and jackeds) with? 200 years ago and earlier - the native americans and indiginous peoples made their moccasins from animal and critter hydes - but those natives- who really still own the rights to the land and natural resouces that we are now destroying -actually respected the land and the earth and the cow- and lived in harmony with the land -these native americans lived in a much more systainable way than we do now - the native american indians did not over-harvest - they did not over-populate, they did not waste anything….yet today we are at a point where oceans cant meet our demands for fish- so we build thousands of acres of fish farms and we have chicken houses where instead of growing free and roaming free - thousands of chickens are stuffed a tiny space-asses to elbos - crapping all over one another - just so they can be slaughtered to meet our varacious appetite for meat. These are the first signs of the demise of a speicies. Historically -when species get to the point where they over-havest nature- and over-consume the very things that support their existance- where they waste water and no longer have water to drink (our real next pending crisis in the US and the world - moreso than energy) Can we keep this up? Are GREEN SHOES part of the solution - YOU BET. This brings us to the thrid aspect of “ARE YOUR SHOES GREEN” - that is the issue of global sustainability… - according to Janine Benyus -author of one of my favorite books entitled “bio-mimacry” those species who overharvest cease to exist today. We are on that path. Are we overharvesting -in our use of animals for food and clothing?(all these cows and ranches and checken houses we have on the east cost- andfish farms in the pacific - YES WE ARE) Do we really need to do that? Can we make shoes from waste materials - YES - according to William McDonna- Waste = FOOD. In this case - aggricultural waste (wheat straw, corn husks, recycled jeans or cotton fibers, or even recycled carpeting - whatever SHOULD = (Equal) shoes. That IS much more sustainable than either Leather OR PVCvinyl man-made leather shoes. Read Biomimacry- by Janine Benyus - or find one of her presentations or speaches - I have an incredible one she did at an AIA - American Institute of Architects USGBC green building conference-where she suggested implanting biologists into the engineering and architecture profession- to design buildings that mimic natural processes - and building materials that mimic natural processes- like the spider web- 10 times stronger than mans strongest fiber - the one we use to make bullet proof vests - yet spider silk is just natural protien (chewed up bugs and critters in one end- spider silk out the other) Kevlar - which I think is the Incredible “man-made” plastic/oil based fabric used to make bullet proof vests - uses all kinds of energy (embodied energy) to heat it,beat it, and treat it- to turn raw petrolum into bullet proof fibers - Kevlar uses all kinds of nasty chemicals such as hydrocloric acid -in the process of making the fiber so tough. ANd then that kevlar bullet proof vest will NEVER break down- it will be in that landfill 1000 years from now - Is this agood idea? A spider silk is 10 times stronger than Kevlar -but it is Natural protein and toally bio-degradable. If a spider can make eat flys and in a water based factory in its bum- and super high pressure spinnarettes in that tiny bum - produce fiber that is stronger than that of a man-made bullet proof vest - why cant we make shoes from spider silk? We can - we just havent tried! Maybe it IS high time for a total paradigm shift in the shoe and clothing industry. I am just a lowly architect and engineer trying to make better buildings. I love nature, am passionate about the environment and care about what I leave and bequest to the little ones who will inherit the earth. Can we stop over-harvesting our natural resources? or will we be one of the millions of extinct species that have come and gone over time. I personally grew up in Gettysburg-and have fond memories of watching the cows tha t grazed in the fields of the battlefield just a short bike ride from my home -Ilove cows - think they are pretty cool -maybe the solution to the shoe problem actually is right in front of us-in buildings we in the green architecture profession are using natural rapidly renewable based building materials- including fabrics that are not nylon - plastic oil based plastics-but rather- natural - environmentally benign fabrics that are also totally biodegradeable or recyclable. Internationally renow “Green” Architect William McDunna (sp) from UVA worked with textile companies to perfect some of these incredible fabrics which we now specify for use as fabric on office furniture and office wall partitions in our state office buildings. Similarly - while there must be an opportunity to get this kind of thing to happen in the clothing and shoe market- development of shoes - uppers and soles - that are made from 100 % recucled rubber or plastic pop bottles (the shoe sole) just as we now do with the backing on high recycled content commercial copet which uses PET plastic from recycled pop bottles to make new carpet backing and a certain percenage of the carpet fibers (usually the darker fibers). SHoe uppers could bedeveloped from all kinds of natural rapidly renewablematerials such as corn or cotton or wheat or other things that dont involve killing cows. It is amazing - I neverthought of th e analogies that exist between greening the buildings we live in and the clothing we wear. Keep searching - I KNOW that there are some truly green shoes made from 100 % recyled, 100% recyclable, or 100% rapidly renewable and 100% biodegradable materials. Maybe even one day we will have green shoe rating systems - that actually accurately access the greeness of the product- just like we now have an internationally recognized green building rating system -the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system developed by the United States Green Building Association - which today concluded its annual green building “Green Build” onference in Chicago- over 20,000 architects from aross the globe attended- President Bill Clinton was the kenote speaker on Wednesday. We need this sort of energy and transformation in the clothing industry and all industries. YOU can make it happen - demand green products- buy only green products- the consumer demand will drive the market. Keep up the good work. Oh -and just one question- is it really possible to”tip a cow”? when I was a kid- we used to hear about folks going :Cow Tipping”for kicks- just curiuos-it sounds like fun- but not very nice - or good for the poor sleeping cow! It probably takes a very large group drunk teenagers- or a small bobcat to pull off!