I have spent the past year searching for the greenest travel shoe possible. I arrived in Peru with a pair of hiking boots and very old Chuck Taylor One-Stars. Neither of which were particular eco-friendly choices in footwear. They were just the shoes I had in my cupboard, thus using them avoided unnecessary consumerism (Not buying is better than buying, even if you are purchasing the latest “eco” model outdoor shoes).
This search for clean, green, earth friendly footwear that is easy to pack and looks OK with most of my clothes has lead me to sell the hiking boots that were too heavy, socially awkward and only actually necessary about 2% of the time; spend too many idle hours drooling over the latest model of Patagonia footwear, only to realise it is entirely pointless buying an eco-friendly product shipped internationally; embarrass my girlfriend and amuse the local people by being shoe-less for weeks, and finally I came around to admiring the poorest guy in the markets sandals.
Why the shoes of the dirty guy with matted hair and smelly clothes? Well, they are locally made out of recycled car tyres, hand stitched roughly but still no glue is used to hold them together and they will last longer than a really long time. You can’t fault the dirty guy on his environmentally conscience choice of foot protection, nor me since I bought these in Colombia.
Eventually I couldn’t help myself, and in Costa Rica, I took a hacksaw to a tyre and bought some leather straps to come up with these.
Now I wear them everywhere, or go bare-feet.