KEY POINTS:
Searching for shoes that are good for the environment as well as your feet? You may be in for a marathon.
You hear sporty types asking all manner of questions about prospective trainers. Do they have inbuilt stability webs, offer motion control, secure kinematic advantage?
In turn, sports shops offer services such as gait analysis. But few offer a take-back service for trainers, despite their mayfly-like lifespans. The elephant in the room - probably wearing multidensity midsoles - remains the lack of a fully "ethical" trainer.
It's odd, given the opprobrium (and damaged sales) that followed revelations in the 90s about the industry.
Labour practices in Indonesia and Vietnam, particularly in factories used by Nike, were shown on CBS in 1997 and a sort of consumer revolution happened. That year Nike became the first of two companies to be removed from the Domini 400 Social Index because of concerns over its international labour standards.
Elements have improved dramatically. Nike is now held up as a benchmark for good factory auditing and is involved with the International Labour Organisation's "better factories" project in Cambodia. In Britain, New Balance produces 85 per cent of its locally sold shoes from a factory in Cumbria, in northwest England. A decade on, there are demonstrably clean fashion trainers, such as the Worn Again range or Converse alternatives, but where is the ethical all-rounder?
Until it arrives, you can hardly run in bare feet - although one of Nike's new shoes emulates barefoot running.
It is therefore a question of compromise, depending on which ethical issue is the most important. There are vegan alternatives, but synthetics such as ethyl vinyl acetate (often used as a shock absorber) are enormously polluting in manufacture and mean that the shoe will takes ages to degrade.
Look for shoes that have at least substituted toluene, a vicious solvent and volatile organic compound, for water-based solvents.
Biodegradable materials are vitally important.
It would be heresy to tell you to keep your running shoes for longer than the recommended six months - even unworn models lose some of their shock-absorbing cushion after 12 to 24 months. And considering that the average pair has 76 times more fungi than a toilet bowl, who wants them hanging around?
The big brands and retailers need to offer a take-back service for these toxic wonders. Nike seems to be the only one offering limited recycling in Britain. Your trainers will be ground down for basketball courts.
The boycotts might be over, but pollution, labour rights and recyclability are the key questions to ask of brands and retailers. Keeping up the consumer pressure is the only way to keep trainers in perpetual motion.
- Observer
