Brillantly Green, to Somewhat Green, to Pale Green
Number 1: PLANT-BASED
HEMP, JUTE, RICE, SUGAR CANE, BAMBOO and TENCEL STALKS, RUBBER, WOOD and COTTON Farmers around the world grow these crops for Sanuk. Consider land rights, labor practices, water usage, etc; but these materials have the great potential to be the greenist of all in the production for flip flops and many other wonderful produts. Wood, including cork and bamboo, entails the harvest of trees. This practice may be green, depending if the cultivation of lumber is primarily for forest clearing for pasture grazing or for purposeful and environmentally planned cultivation and harvest, if the cultivation is of virgen vs cultivated trees and forests with the subsequent regeneration of forests with replanting. Wood and the other plant-based sources are entirely biodegradable, and can be very green.
a) SANUK.
The Sanuk company is the one company I know that uses 100% plants, as well as responsibly-sourced leather, in 100% of their flip flops. The rubber soles are natural rubber, made from the sap of rubber trees, not petroleum-based synthetic polymers.
(insert fotos for Sanuk and some other non Sanuk products, all linked to Etsy andAmazon.com …
(insert here Sanuk beautiful photos and links, to Sanuk and Etsy and Amazon too)
b) Traditional wooden pairs:
Old Japanese Getas, worn with kimono
Etsy site links:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1877721972/japanese-wooden-sandals?ls=s&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=japanese+wooden+sandals&ref=sr_gallery-1-19&sr_prefetch=1&frs=1&sts=1&nob=1&content_source=01986cf3511439ec42178bb8b0a5f9b845d2008a:1877721972&organic_search_click=1&logging_key=01986cf3511439ec42178bb8b0a5f9b845d2008a:1877721972
Dutch vintage:
include a few Amazon.com linked and Etsy wooden …
Number 2: LEATHER GREEN
LEATHER. Leather is biodegradable! It may also for footwear in conjunction with a synthetic sole, and manufacture of leather usually polutes with the tanning process with its toxic chemical runoff. Creatures whose hides are used may be farmed in factory farms or ranged, they may or may not be treated with care, but grazing animals as well mink, fox, beaver, lizards, alligators, snakes–all, are at the end of the day, killed at least in part for their skins, or soley for their skins. Green? Possibly. Perhaps not. The material itself of leather is biodegradable, naturally.
a) Rainbow Sandals
Rainbow flip flops are handmade in Laguna Beach of leather and synthetic rubber. The craftspeople attempt to have their sandals to last a long, long time; and then the company encourages people to return their old worn sandals to be repurposed and given to needy people.
link to Amazon.com …
Number 3 (Worst): SYNTHETIC RUBBER, Pale Green
Synthetic rubber is a polymer made in an industrial laboratory with petroleum, natural gas, or coal, and other chemicals derived from petroleum. Synthetic rubber (a plastic) eventually degrades in 80-2000 years to microscopic particles toxic to soil and water. The particles pass on to sea creatures and reefs and to winds and rains and soils to humans. Hardly green. Most major brands of flip flops, and all sorts of wedges, sandals, and shoes, are made with synthetic rubber. The synthetic rubber is SBR (styrene butadiene rubber) and/or and EVA (a copolymer of ethylene and vinyl acetate) or other types of flexible polymer. The below brands are great flip flops, often beautiful, and useful; they are not very green in terms of biodegradability. They all can at least be reused, recycled, repurposed.
a) Havaianas.
Perhaps this brand of flip flop is the best of the “Pale Green.” Havaianas state that they use a combination of natural and synthetic rubber, although I do not have a ratio or further information on this. To be Determined. At least, Havaianas step in the right direction, they always seem to know what is important to their customers, and this has been their tradition since their founding in 1962.
b) Ipanema
c) Olukai
d) Reef
e) Fitflop
link to Havaianas and to Amazon.com…
REUSE:
All of the above flip flops from brilliantly green to less, can be reused. Even car tires can be reused to make flip flops. All synthetic polymer products can be reused.
{Link to my alternative use website here, ….. and link to Etsy and Amazon}
Considering,
LABOR is an important issue, a caveat, another layer, a thorn, a parallel to environmental consideration, to the above comments: All flip flop companies must be subject to watchful eyes as it relates to labor: relevant practices and private business, corporate, and financial news and updates, unions, collective organizations, cooperatives, land rights, profit distribution and tax law, labor laws and enforcement of them, and related labor issues. Oil and gas drillers, lumberjacks and carvers, butchers and tanners, farmers, and craftsmen and women, retail people, and business people— require protection, fair sharing of the gains of labor, and respect and dignity.
*This post is provided in good faith as an “apologia” in the older Greek sense, as an attempt to explain. The environment issues are problematic to discuss, to say the least. May this be an opening to more discussion. I am not an authority but hope to learn by discussion with you and further research. Comments welcome. Perhaps it’s best to go barefoot. Barefoot is fine with me. And recycle and reuse, at least.