Spoiler Alert: These Shoes Are Made From Trash
Earth Day might have been earlier this week, but we like recycling innovations every day around here. Especially ones with end products as bright as our website/offices/lives.
These beautiful, rainbow-colored shoes are made entirely of plastic trash that was collected on beaches in the UK. Whoa. We know.
Hoping to spread the word and bring awareness to the serious damage overconsumption causes, Everything Is Rubbish picked trash out of the ocean in the UK, melted it down, and made sneakers (or “trainers” as they say across the pond) from it. But they’re not for sale — these kicks hope to kick our bad habits, and possibly also our incredibly wasteful butts into being smarter consumers.
The shoes may be cute and calling them “rubbish” doesn’t do a lot to make them any less adorable, but they’re trying to make a statement about our diet of fast fashion. Everything Is Rubbish wants us to think about what we buy, buy a loooot less of it and stop spending money on things that feed our self-image and, ultimately, trash bins.
As they put it, a pair of contemporary kicks actually spend only a wee fraction of their lives on our feet and way more time in landfills, taking centuries to break down. Think about it. Those boots are made for rotting. Ick.
Even if the shoes aren’t for sale, we like where their head is at in making them. With a future focused on all of the “stuff” we’ll be able to make in our own homes (including clothing!) as opposed to buying out, what if we could take some of this plastic and melt it down to spool into our 3D printers? Sign us up as Early Bird Pledge the Kickstarter for a machine that would let you do this kind of recycling in-house.
What do you think about Everything Is Rubbish? Any cool projects (recycling or otherwise) we’ve missed? Share with us below!
(h/t: PSFK)
