TRASH FOOTWEAR - Rather Fancy Rubbish

Quality materials salvaged from landfill oblivion, re-incarnated in Raglan as unique footwear!

Imagine if they closed all the rubbish dumps tomorrow?...

We at Trash Footwear have, and don't think it would be too pretty! So we thought we'd have a go at making some good-looking shoes from this rubbish mountain...

So how have we done this?

Well we put our thinking caps on and came up with a long list of waste materials to try out:

• conveyor belts

• used clothing

• upholstery samples and offcuts

• seatbelts

• motorbike tyres

• reclaimed leather

• canvas offcuts … etc

We then politely asked several companies if they would mind if Trash saved them the trouble of throwing their waste away and made it into shoes instead. Turning these materials into Trash Footwear ingredients saves otherwise wasted resources from landfill oblivion, as well as removing the need to produce new ones; A nice little breather for our planet…aaaaahh…

A lot of love and energy goes into locally sourcing and processing these materials. Yet this is nothing compared to the energy to make these materials anew, or even compared to most recycling streams, which are often sent to China to be downgraded into a lower grade product. In fact, our Trash ingredients get a nice upgrade, turning ‘rubbish’ into rather fancy footwear!

At Trash we re-use extremely durable, functional and comfortable materials. These are then made into unique footwear at the Soul Shoes factory in Raglan NZ, using time-tested techniques to produce long lasting quality products.

OUR ETHIC:  locally sourced + locally made + locally sold = LOCALLY MADE, NOT GLOBALLY BROKEN!

In nature there is no such thing as waste…Although Trash Footwear is not the perfect solution, it's a pretty decent start!

BACKGROUND
Trash Footwear began when Ben Galloway of Raglan made a pair of sandals from his old jeans to take on his OE. Three years of walking the world wore through the ‘new’ sole but not the ‘old’ jeans! The idea brewed as Ben also saw parts of the world awash in waste!
In mid-2011 Trash was born with the aim to reduce waste through re-use of materials and through the long life of its products.