Choose shoes that don’t leave toxic footprints

Shoes that we wear every day can be highly toxic and therefore have a big impact on our health. Shoe production also greatly affects factory workers and the environment as they are heavily treated with various toxic chemicals. So before you walk in another man’s shoes – find out what’s lurking in your’s!

How do the toxic chemicals end up in our shoes?

Most of the shoes are produced either from leather or synthetic materials. Both can be highly toxic if they come in contact with your skin when worn.

These toxins have been recurrent in various shoe tests:  

• Chromium: used in the tanning of 85 % of the world’s leather shoes. It’s a heavy metal and the 4st worst toxic pollutant in the world. Known to be a human cancerogen 
• Other heavy metals, such as arsenic, lead and mercury, and hazardous substances like formaldehyde, dimethylfumarateI, chlorinated paraffins, azo dyes, ortho-phenylphenol, bactericides and fungicidesall originate from the tanning, preservation, or dyeing of the leather
• PVC, PU, EVA, TPU– crude oil by-products commonly used in the production of plastic shoes. May contain phthalates: not easily absorbed by the body but off-gases if inhaled can increase risk of asthma or cause hormonal unbalance.

Factory workers get 2%, retailers 38%

• A single shoe can contain 65 discrete parts that require 360 processing steps for assembly.
• For this reason, shoe-making process relies heavily on manual labour, which creates ample opportunities for exploitation of vulnerable workers.
• As little as 2% of the final price of a shoe goes towards factory worker’s pay!

Footprints that leave CO2 marks…

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Here are 5 #nontoxicsteps you can take to avoid toxins in shoes

• Wear organic socks to protect your skin from absorbing any nasties from the surface of your shoes
• When buying a new pair, consider choosing one made with safer materials 
• Check where the shoes were made. Majority is produced in developing countries with lax laws reg. environmental & social protection
• Use your shoes as long as possible before landfilling #lessismore
• Shoes/clothes made out of #recycled materials greatly reduce CO2 footprint. They can however contain residues of such harmful chemicals as BPA, BPS, phthalates or PVC if e.g. produced from recycled bottles. Responsibly produced virgin materials may be a safer option

Finally: if a product’s low price seems almost too good to be true, it’s because it probably is. Someone’s always gotta pay the true cost in the end! 

To make your search for safer shoes easier, I’ve summarised what materials and brands to prefer here.

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