A Sustainable Shopping Spree

When I was working on my green packaging story for Continental Magazine, I discovered a lot of cool information. For example, though lots of different kinds of companies are greening the containers that held their products (the Timberland boxes at right include a “carbon footprint” label designed to look like a nutrition facts label), they were also greening the products themselves.

Nike made big news in January when it announced it would be making its latest version of the Air Jordan shoe to be environmentally sound. (Never mind the shoes’ hefty price tag will probably preclude most shoppers from choosing these shoes.) Then earlier this month Nike announced that its Steve Nash, of the Phoenix Suns’ shoes, would be made from recycled materials found on the factory floor. OK, so that’s pretty cool. Upon digging a little deeper I discovered that this is part of Nike’s ongoing mission to reduce waste through its Nike Grind and Reuse-a-Shoe program.

Reuse-a-Shoe is all about taking worn-out shoes and either recycling them into new shoes or using the rubber to create the protective surface on outdoor playgrounds. If you’re interested in donating your kids or your own worn out shoes, which can be any brand by the way, to Reuse-a-Shoe, click on this link to find donation locations.

Then comes the news that actress Natalie Portman has launched a line of vegan-friendly shoes for Ta Casan to match her vegan-friendly life. She is following in the footsteps of vegan shoes from the likes of Stella McCartney. Only problem is that these kinds of non-leather shoes usually rely on really earth-unfriendly materials like petroleum. Portman has promised, in a recent “Intelligencer” bit in New York magazine, that “for our next collection, we’re looking at a lot of eco-friendly materials. We don’t want to save the animals and poison their environment.”Good girl, Natalie. Can’t wait to see that next collection.

In the meantime I’ll probably limit my sustainable shopping to the stuff I can afford, like the cool screen t-shirts my daughter loves from Kohl’s and which cost about $10. They include clever, eco-friendly messages like “Don’t Be Trashy, Recycle” and “Global Warming Isn’t Cool.” According to the shirt’s hang tag, these shirts from Ross Sportswear, Inc. include a 50-cent donation to the National Wildlife Federation and 50-cent donation to Trees for the Future.

How are you helping the earth with items currently in your closet?