The core of making a flip-flop hasn’t changed much in the past few decades. The materials and design have been updated, but flip-flops are still for the most part made in the exact same way as they have been for a long time. Rightfully so, since the flip-flop is pretty much the most basic type of footwear in existence!

Flip-flops were one of the first types of footwear that innovators began experimenting with, flip-flops made from recycled automobile tires, flip-flops made from old carpet, and now flip-flops made from repurposed yoga mats!

Last week we at Common Soles learned that we have been accepted as an official green business by Green America! This means that the Common Soles product, business practices, and processes we employ have been audited by the Green America research team to ensure they meet the established criteria to deem us a green business!

The auditing/screening process checks that we:

Today I received a new laptop battery – it’s pretty exciting for me because my current battery only holds a charge for about 5 minutes.  So now I’m back humming 100% with this new battery and able to go about my day in my usual un-tethered manner! But what remains of this re-battery process is my old battery. Pretty much a useless item to me, so what do I do with this item which clearly has some toxic components inside of it? Dell did not provide any instruction for what to do. Ahh!!

So that’s my rant for the day – but it got us thinking about the afterlife of a Common Soles flip-flop. From the beginning we always told customers that they could return their old and worn out Common Soles to us, but since we’re only about a year old it just really hasn’t come up yet. So here it is – official now because it’s being written on our website which in 2010 terms means it might as well be the 10 Commandments.

Many brands have gotten quite creative with their packaging, offering innovative eco-friendly packaging instead of the classic cardboard box. A few of our favorites are from Timbuk2 and PACT. Timbuk2 has taken it to a whole new level by printing a map of the city of San Francisco on the outside of the plastic bag they ship their bags in. The map is dubbed “a waterproof San Francisco bike map”. Sweet! It’s amazingly detailed, and even has some of the companies favorite points of interest marked off on the map. We applaud this move as it gives a simple shipping bag a useful afterlife.

PACT has gone the full eco-route with their packaging. Claiming that you can toss the packaging in the dirt and it will completely decompose, label and all in less than 45 days. Cool!

Rao and I strongly believe that all businesses need to incorporate the consideration of environmental health into their business strategy and practices. We have made it a core tenant of the Common Soles business model from the beginning. Since making it public that we were going to be an environmentally conscious business we have made some significant headway. On a product side we have incorporated re-purposed materials into all our flip-flops. Components made from coconut shells and natural woven jute are prime examples. We also do not leverage heavy machinery in our manufacturing. All assembly is done by hand in the factories that make Common Soles. Cool!

StartupNation.com A basic guide titled “9 Steps to Greening your Business” 

Fast Company Some best practices and ideas shared in an article: “50 Ways to Green Your Business”

EVA, (Ethylene-vinyl acetate) is some incredibly versatile stuff. It’s the elasticized polymer foam material used in most footwear to add support, structure, and cushioning. It’s incredibly versatile as it can be molded, dyed, cut, and shaped into just about any configuration. It’s incredibly inexpensive compared to the other materials used in footwear such as leather or rubber, and it’s darn easy to get good at working with it!

But it’s not all roses for this wonder material.  EVA doesn’t break-down naturally and so it’s filling landfills across the globe with a product that doesn’t jive with nature. The manufacturing of EVA is a toxic process, and even though EVA scraps and used EVA can be recycled into new EVA – it’s not at all a green process.

Here is an update on some of the materials and construction techniques we hope to be working into our line moving forward. This post is also essentially Part 3 of a series I am writing on sustainable footwear here on our blog. Enjoy!

Rice Rubber Outsole: This stuff is amazing. The outsole is the very bottom of footwear, the part that connects with the ground. Most traditional outsoles are made from rubber or PU (polyurethane). Rice Rubber is a blend of several happier ingredients. It’s a base of natural latex rubber mixed with SBR or Styrene Butadiene Rubber. SBR has been used for over 60 years in all sorts of applications such as tires, shoes, and gaskets. The blend is necessary for durability and longevity (Remember – durable footwear has a longer useful life = fewer pairs need to be manufactured). Rice husks which are a byproduct of the food industry and typically discarded after harvesting are then mixed in with the rubber. The rice husks displace a good portion of the rubber needed as well as add strength to the mixture. Similar to how gravel is added to cement to form concrete. The resulting product is not only a more eco-friendly alternative to traditional rubber soles, but it looks darn cool!

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Rao and I have literally scowered India for all and any eco-friendly materials to integrate in our forthcoming styles of flip-flops and footwear.  We met with dozens of vendors selling product that comes from all over India and Asia. The bummer part is they all smiled when we asked for eco-friendly materials and kindly shook there heads.  hmmm...  what to do as we were not going to give up that easily!

It turns out there are quite a few eco-friendly materials that we could easily integrate into our footwear.  They just hadn't been branded that way so nobody knew it, not even the vendors selling the goods.  Here's a sampling of what we found and plan to integrate into our next few styles.

Jute:  Jute is a vegetable fiber that grows all over India. In fact India harvests more than 2 million tons of jute every year which puts them in the lead for tonnage harvested in the world with the next country not even at half that.  Jute is better known as Burlap here in the US, so now you all know what I'm talking about.  Jute is 100% biodegradable and recyclable which makes us happy!  Look for jute in our straps and soles in the future.

Paper: Paper pulp is used to make card-stock. We use card-stock for the hang-tags and hangers for our flip-flops. Apparently almost all the paper pulp processed in India is post-consumer which is something they completely fail to mention!  It may be that post-consumer is perceived as a negative quality wise for the paper producers, but we see it as a positive!

Coconut: You all know the coconut. India harvests more than 9 million tons of it a year putting it at third in the world. The shell of coconuts can be cut and polished to produce a variety of materials which can be used in making a flip-flop. Coconut fiber is also used in several varieties of textile such as the popular Cocona material often used in sportswear.

While we were in India we took samples of the above materials and came up with a few prototypes that used as many eco-friendly materials as possible.  Here are some pictures of that prototype. It has a woven jute sole impregnated with natural rubber for durability and traction, coconut beads and hardware on the strap, and a woven jute insole on the footbed. Let us know what you think!

-Dave