Recycling is vogue

Peep Nash's kicks: they look pretty good for shoes made of garbage

Taking eco-consumerism to the next level is Steve Nash's "Trash Talk" shoe. Nash isn't much of a trash-talker on the court, but he has teamed up with Nike to create these shoes completely made of manufacturing scraps. The materials include pieced-together scraps of leather and synthetic leather waste straight from the factory floor. The sole is made up of materials including ground-up rubber from a shoe recycling program. On last night's NBA All Star Game, Nash called the shoe, "trash. Because it is made of trash."


Another company going the recycling route is Nokia whose Remade concept phone is made mostly of recycled materials including aluminum cans, plastic bottles and old car tires. I didn't know this was possible, but the phone consists of environmentally sensitive technologies called printed electronics, which reduces waste and CO2 emissions during manufacturing. At this rate, Nokia products will consume less natural resources, reduce landfill waste and be more energy efficient in the future.

Hopefully all major manufacturing companies can see these advances as a benchmark and as a trend that will continue, aiming to reduce our global ecological footprint.