Pale, porous and 3D-printed: inside the weird and wonderful quest to make compostable shoes
The shoes may not immediately strike you as the future of mainstream fashion. Pale and porous, they resemble a cross between a beige Croc and the long-net stinkhorn fungus found on forest floors. Their creators, however, hope this will be the next huge breakthrough in sustainable footwear: the world’s first 3D printed, made-to-measure, compostable shoe, which can be broken down at the end of its life, in an attempt to stem the flow of millions of shoes into landfill each year.
Fashion is among the world’s top polluting industries. It is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions and consumes huge amounts of water and land for production. Modern shoes are among the hardest items to produce sustainably because of their complexity, say industry experts, and there are few reliable statistics about the number manufactured every year for the world’s 8 billion humans. There is an almost total dearth of statistics about their environmental impact.
Most shoes are composed of a mixture of synthetic fabric, rubber, plastic and metal, which is often held together with strong adhesives, and they are incredibly difficult to dispose of. The vast majority are bound for landfill once used, where they could take hundreds of years to break down. There are efforts to pioneer recyclable trainers for the world’s $70bn (£55bn) industry, with some brands offering services if customers post back.