Category Archives: organic

Is spider silk the fabric of the future?

by Grace62Rbrbmv Posted on June 4, 2015

Is spider silk the fabric of the future?

By on 4 Jun 2015 4:38 pmcommentsShare

What would you rather wear: water guzzling cotton, petroleum-based polyester, or a crazy strong wonder material that comes from spider butts?

The correct answer is spider butts — I mean, spider silk. (Before you jump to the comments, I should say that I know that spider silk doesn’t actually come from spiders’ butts; it comes from their “spinning ducts.” But, come on, spider butts is way more fun to say.)

San Francisco-based company Bolt Threads is planning to have spider-silk clothing available as early as next year, according to Bloomberg Business. The company, founded five years ago by a group of graduate students at UC San Francisco, is pitching the nature-made textile as an eco-friendly alternative to some of the gross fabrics that we wear now.

But here’s the catch: Bolt’s spider silk doesn’t actually come from spiders. It turns out those little eight-legged monsters are terrible at textile mass production. Here’s more from Bloomberg:

Scientists, at least those who aren’t arachnophobes, have tried to mass-produce spider silk for decades with little success. Spiders are territorial and cannibalistic—try to farm them, and they end up eating each other. But scientists have long believed that if spiders would only cooperate, fabric made from their silk would be well-suited for use in military and medical equipment, like wound sutures or artificial tendons, as well as in high-performance athletic clothing and other garments.

When the Bolt crew first started out, they actually bought a bunch of spiders from an insect dealer in Florida and let them spin their silk all over the office. (Not surprisingly, that method of production proved untenable.)

Instead, the researchers genetically engineered yeast to produce the same material through fermentation. They can even specify the softness, stretch, and strength of the material, Bloomberg reports. Oh, and they also have a sweet office:

Bolt Threads occupies offices across the San Francisco Bay, in Emeryville. A copy of Charlotte’s Web is in the lobby, and a chandelier made of silkworm cocoons hangs in the conference room. The real action is in a series of interlinked labs, where billions of bioengineered yeast cells ferment, excreting their protein fibers into slurries of water, salt, and sugar. In another room, centrifuges filter out the silk from the liquid. A larger room will hold 200-liter fermentation units for producing silk in greater quantities. Bolt is working with manufacturing partners such as the Michigan Biotechnology Institute in Lansing, which will do larger-scale fermentation in 4,000-liter tanks using Bolt’s process, and Unifi, a yarn manufacturer based in Greensboro, N.C., which will spin Bolt’s fibers into apparel-ready yarn and textiles.

Of course, any plan to mass produce anything raises a lot of questions: How much water and energy will it take to put us all in spider silk tees? Could spider silk have any negative health impacts? Will spiders confuse us all for giant prey caught in giant webs? And most importantly — is there any chance (any chance AT ALL) that a shy, 25-year-old reporter who’s kind of a nerd could get superpowers from wearing spider silk clothing?

Source:
A Bay Area Startup Spins Lab-Grown Silk

, Bloomberg Business.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get Grist in your inbox

Continue reading:  

Is spider silk the fabric of the future?

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, ONA, organic, OXO, Radius, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Is spider silk the fabric of the future?

Ikea is putting more than a billion bucks into the climate fight

by JeannieSheean Posted on June 4, 2015

Ikea is putting more than a billion bucks into the climate fight

By on 4 Jun 2015 3:14 pmcommentsShare

Ikea announced today that it plans to put 1 billion euros toward fighting climate change — more than $1.12 billion. Sixty percent of that will go to build renewable energy capacity, especially wind, moving the company toward its goal of using 100 percent clean energy. The remaining 40 percent will go toward helping poor countries adapt to climate change.

The furniture superstore’s business is booming as people across North America, Europe, and Asia flock to Ikea stores to purchase cheap, supposedly easy-to-assemble furniture and, sometimes, solar panels. And to watch couples fight. Last year the company made more than $32 billion.

But all of those sales take an environmental toll: Fortune magazine reported last year that Ikea consumes 1 percent of the world’s commercially logged wood, turning it into things like stylish laundry baskets and unobtrusive bedframes. And, according to the company’s own statistics, only 41 percent of Ikea’s customers see the company as one that “takes social and environmental responsibility.” Ikea wants to get that figure up to 70 percent this year.

Still, Ikea’s CEO told Reuters that the company’s primary motivation was fighting climate change, not PR. “Getting that message out to the customers is secondary,” he said.

The money for renewable energy investment will add to the $1.7 billion the company has already invested in wind and solar, including 700,000 solar panels on its buildings and more than 300 off-site wind turbines.

“I am heartened to see corporate leadership in this area,” said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator on the U.N. climate agreement for the Alliance of Small Island States, which stand to be hit particularly hard by climate change.

Green-minded Ikea customers will also likely be heartened by the news, which is at least as exciting as the vegan Swedish meatballs that started showing up in store restaurants a few months ago.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get Grist in your inbox

View the original here:

Ikea is putting more than a billion bucks into the climate fight

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ikea is putting more than a billion bucks into the climate fight

Study: Organic Farming Is More Profitable Than Conventional

by FlorineCastanon Posted on June 4, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After years of steady growth in demand, organic food now accounts for 5 percent of US food sales. Yet organically managed land makes up just 1 percent of US farmland. Why hasn’t the craze for organics moved from the supermarket to the countryside? The problem isn’t a lack of profitability, a new paper (abstract; press release) from Washington State University researchers David Crowdera and John Reganold finds.

The authors crunched data from 44 studies involving 55 crops grown on five continents over 40 years and found that organic farming is somewhere between 22 percent and 35 percent more profitable for farmers than conventional. The reason: the higher price farmers get when they sell certified-organic crops. This “premium,” as it’s known, stands at around 30 percent, and stayed roughly equal over the four-decade period, the authors report.

They also found that organic farming would retain its profitability edge even its price advantage dropped significantly: at a premium as low as 5 percent, they found, the two systems are equally profitable. The costs of doing business are roughly equal for the two systems: Organic farmers save on chemical inputs, but essentially substitute labor for chemicals (thinking hoeing weeds vs. dousing them with herbicide) and thus have higher labor costs.

According to the studies they analyzed, organic farming delivers lower yields than conventional, by somewhere between 10 percent and 18 percent (mainly driven by use of synthetic and mined fertilizers). This yield penalty, it should be noted, is not necessarily set in stone. For the purposes of this paper, the authors looked at studies comparing conventional and organic ag as they’re practiced in the field a variety of contexts.

But agrichemical-intensive agriculture has received far more research-and-development over the decades than organic has. And when organic ag is lavished with serious research, it has proven the ability to deliver comparable yields—see, for example, the well-respected test plots at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania.

And farmers’ work isn’t just about generating maximum yield in any one growing season; it’s also about maintaining healthy soil and limiting pollution. Here, the Washington State authors note, organic ag delivers “greater energy efficiency; enhanced soil carbon and quality; greater floral, faunal, and landscape diversity; and less pesticide and nutrient pollution of ground and surface waters.”

These “externalities,” as they’re known, “likely make up for price premiums awarded to organic products,” the authors write. That is, when we spend more for organic food, we’re essentially paying farmers a little extra to maintain healthy soil and avoid pesticide runoff.

The question looms: If organic is more profitable, why hasn’t it spread far and wide? The authors note that the three-year transition required for certification puts farmers in a bind: Having gone cold turkey from agrichemicals, their yields drop, but they get no price premium for their trouble until year four. I’d add that farmers, like most people, are wary of change. Organic may offer higher profits; but ditching chemicals requires a radically different style of farming. Such leaps aren’t made casually.

If we want to move away from reliance on toxic chemicals, the organic premium might not be enough. We may have to think of other ways to factor those “externalities” into the price of the food we eat.

Originally posted here: 

Study: Organic Farming Is More Profitable Than Conventional

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, organic, oven, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Study: Organic Farming Is More Profitable Than Conventional

The drought is killing everything — except wineries

by MargareFensterm Posted on June 2, 2015

hurrah for syrah

The drought is killing everything — except wineries

By on 2 Jun 2015commentsShare

Drought, out to destroy all your favorite things, is taking it surprisingly easy on vino — here’s the veritas from the New York Times:

Water shortages plague a vast area of the West, including Washington, where Gov. Jay Inslee last month declared a statewide drought emergency. But grapes require far less water than other crops. And the problem runs much deeper in California, where the drought, exacerbated by climate change, has entered its fourth year and farmers, including some in wine-producing areas in central California, are dealing with cuts of 25 percent or more in their water allotments.

In Washington’s Yakima valley, apples have long reigned supreme — but since the wholesome, all-American fruit needs twice as much water as a wine grape, the state’s orchards are ceding territory to Bacchus’s crop of choice:

“All this used to be apples,” said Dick Boushey, gesturing out from the front of his house a half-hour south of Yakima, where a brown, tilled field of 24 acres was cleared of apple trees last winter. Mr. Boushey’s team was planting new cabernet sauvignon vines over the Memorial Day weekend, and when that final former apple field … goes to grapes, his transition from apple farmer to wine-grape grower will be complete. …

Since 2010, wine-grape acreage in Washington has increased by 22 percent, according to state figures, to about 50,000 acres. At the same time, acreage for many other historically important crops — from potatoes to wheat — has been flat or in decline.

While times get harder — and dryer — for Napa’s famous vineyards, Washington vintners can put their feet up and enjoy some home-grown Sauvignon. Water security, shmater security, amirite? Just this once, let’s raise a glass to drought.

Source:
Drought Is Bearing Fruit for Washington Wineries

, New York Times.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get Grist in your inbox

This article:  

The drought is killing everything — except wineries

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The drought is killing everything — except wineries

Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

by WernerCordner Posted on June 1, 2015

DON’T GET HEATED

Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

By on 1 Jun 2015commentsShare

World peace has always been an unachievable fantasy. Until now.

A group of researchers at UC San Diego just got $2.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to make clothing that could regulate body temperature and thus reduce the amount of energy we use for heating and cooling. Here’s more from a press release out of UCSD:

The smart fabric will be designed to regulate the temperature of the wearer’s skin — keeping it at 93° F — by adapting to temperature changes in the room. When the room gets cooler, the fabric will become thicker. When the room gets hotter, the fabric will become thinner. To accomplish this feat, the researchers will insert polymers that expand in the cold and shrink in the heat inside the smart fabric.

According to one of the researchers on the project, 93 degrees is a comfortable skin temperature for most people (who knew?). Clothes made from the fabric will also include “supplemental heating and cooling devices” in certain spots that tend to get particularly uncomfortable (parts of the back, bottoms of feet, etc.).

So what does this have to do with world peace? Think about it: all that passive aggression that builds when your roommate cranks up the thermostat, and then you (resident environmentalist) turn it back down to save energy? Or that crankiness that creeps over you when a public place has the A.C. on arctic chill, but you didn’t bring a jacket because it’s 80 freaking degrees outside? Or that thing about violent crimes going up in the summer? It could all go away! Or, at least, cool down.

Joseph Wang, lead researcher on the project and a professor of nanoengineering at UCSD, is envisioning a smart fabric revolution:

“We are aiming to make the smart clothing look and feel as much like the clothes that people regularly wear. It will be washable, stretchable, bendable and lightweight. We also hope to make it look attractive and fashionable to wear,” said Wang.

A word of advice, Wang: If you want to start a smart fabric revolution, you better do more than just hope on that last point. We — the vainest of all species — put ourselves through all manner of discomfort in the name of fashion. You better believe that we’ll continue to suffer if that smart clothing doesn’t look good, too.

Source:
Engineers win grant to make smart clothes for personalized cooling and heating

, UC San Diego.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get Grist in your inbox

Source article:

Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

Posted in Anchor, ATTRA, Casio, FF, GE, ONA, organic, Oster, Radius, Thermos, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

Colombia considers unleashing caterpillar army to attack cocaine crops

by PiperFunnell Posted on May 22, 2015

green4us

Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a […]

iTunes Store
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant […]

iTunes Store
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis – Instaread

PLEASE NOTE: This is a  summary and analysis  of the book and NOT the original book.  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis   Inside this Instaread: Summary of entire book, Introduction to the important people in the book, Key Takeaways and Analysis of the Key Takeaways. […]

iTunes Store
Cesar Millan’s Short Guide to a Happy Dog – Cesar Millan

After more than 9 seasons as TV’s Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan has a new mission: to use his unique insights about dog psychology to create stronger, happier relationships between humans and their canine companions. Now in paperback, this inspirational and practical guide draws on thousands of training encounters around the world to present 98 essential lessons. Taken together, they will […]

iTunes Store
White Dwarf Issue 68: 16th May 2015 – White Dwarf

White Dwarf 68 rolls in on crushing tracks – the Kataphron battle servitors are here, dead flesh, unthinking, automaton minds, and barrel-loads of the Adeptus Mechanicus’s most destructive weaponry. We’ve got a first look in New Releases, Paint Splatter and full rules for using the Kataphron Breachers and Kataphron Destroyers in your games. Elsewhere we’ve […]

iTunes Store
The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

iTunes Store
Codex: Imperial Knights (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

Thundering across the battlefield, the towering walkers known as Imperial Knights scatter the foes of the Imperium with booming battle cannon shots and roaring swings of their massive chainblades. The Knights are piloted by proud and deadly warriors of ancient cultures, each one part of a noble family whose lineage can stretch back to before […]

iTunes Store
The Cannabis Grow Bible – Greg Green

The definitive guide to growing marijuana just got better! Greg Green’s original Cannabis Grow Bible set a new standard for handbooks on cannabis horticulture and established Green as the leading authority in the field. Green’s comprehensive and professionally presented work on how to cultivate superior cannabis struck a chord with beginner, amateur and professional growers […]

iTunes Store
White Dwarf Issue 67: 09th May 2015 – White Dwarf

Conqueror protocols, engaged! White Dwarf 67 strides forth like an automata of death – well, of weekly hobby goodness – but beside it the Kastelan battle robots, the real mindless machines of death and destruction. What are these relics of an age ancient even by the standards of the Imperium? We’ve got the knowledge you’re […]

iTunes Store
Following Atticus – Tom Ryan

After a close friend died of cancer, middle-aged, overweight, acrophobic newspaperman Tom Ryan decided to pay tribute to her in a most unorthodox manner. Ryan and his friend, miniature schnauzer Atticus M. Finch, would attempt to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four thousand- foot peaks twice in one winter while raising money for charity. […]

iTunes Store

Originally from: 

Colombia considers unleashing caterpillar army to attack cocaine crops

Posted in eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, growing marijuana, horticulture, LAI, Monterey, ONA, organic, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Colombia considers unleashing caterpillar army to attack cocaine crops

Your Binge-Watching Is Making the Planet Warmer

by Myrna Posted on May 22, 2015

Those cat videos, TED talks, and Netflix original series you watch to unwind might be slowly killing the planet. mezclaconfusa/Flickr You recycle. You ride your bike to work. You bring your own bags to the grocery. You might think you’re a good environmentalist. But those cat videos, TED talks, and Netflix original series you watch to unwind might be slowly killing the planet. That’s the word from Greenpeace’s latest Clicking Clean report, which evaluates the clean energy initiatives of many different internet companies. While we’re used to thinking about our environmental impact in terms of how much trash we throw out, how much we drive, and how much electricity we use in our homes, the report highlights the ways that our internet usage has environmental effects that we never see. Data center emissions account for small percentage of global emissions, Greenpeace information technology analyst Gary Cook tells us. That’s not much compared to 14 percent that goes towards agriculture or the 13 percent that goes to transportation. But data center emissions are growing by at least 13 percent per year, Cook says. And within two years, information technology in general, including manufacturing servers and other gear, is expected to be to account for between seven and 12 percent of all electrical use, according the report. To keep reading, click here. View original article:   Your Binge-Watching Is Making the Planet Warmer ; ; ;

Original link:

Your Binge-Watching Is Making the Planet Warmer

Posted in eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, global climate change, growing marijuana, horticulture, LAI, Monterey, ONA, organic, OXO, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Your Binge-Watching Is Making the Planet Warmer

Climate Change Blamed for Severe Drought Hitting Vietnam’s Coffee Crops

by Myrna Posted on May 22, 2015

Exports drop 40% as world’s second-biggest coffee exporter suffers rising temperatures and drought, combined with effects of deforestation, land degradation and depleted water resources caused by decades of growth. Wikimedia Commons The last time Nguyen Van Viet saw water in his well was almost four months ago. The 44-year-old has farmed coffee in central Vietnam for two decades and says that’s never happened before. “This is the worst drought I’ve seen in over a decade,” Viet, told the Guardian. “Some people don’t have enough water to drink.” For Viet and millions of other coffee farmers, this season has been disastrous. A prolonged drought has affected all five provinces in Vietnam’s Central Highlands – a region that produces 60% of the country’s coffee. “Normally, in March or April, it should start rain, but this year it hasn’t rained until now,” Viet said. “Over the years I’ve realised it’s getting harder to grow coffee mostly because lack of water. The temperatures are getting higher and higher and the rainfall is less.” Viet says he’s lost almost 4,000 sq meters of coffee crops on his five-acre farm in Dak Lak, a province responsible for 30% of total coffee harvests last year. At least 7,000 acres of coffee plants have died there since March, according to the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. And in neighbouring Lam Dong Province, the drought has stressed another 150,000 acres of coffee. To keep reading, click here. Taken from:  Climate Change Blamed for Severe Drought Hitting Vietnam’s Coffee Crops ; ; ;

Visit source:

Climate Change Blamed for Severe Drought Hitting Vietnam’s Coffee Crops

Posted in alo, Citadel, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LG, Monterey, ONA, organic, OXO, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate Change Blamed for Severe Drought Hitting Vietnam’s Coffee Crops

Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

by VirginiAaron Posted on May 19, 2015

Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

By on 19 May 2015 3:01 pmcommentsShare

We tend not to bring up one of the most unpleasant consequences of climate change, speaking strictly day-to-day, because it’s one we don’t like to talk about in general.

Sweat.

Sweat in the morning, sweat in the evening. Sweat indoors and out. Sweat in places of your body you weren’t even previously aware of. You know this sweat.

Anyway: We try not to talk about it or think about it, probably because sweating is miserable! There’s no quicker or more wretched way to remind oneself that to be human is to be trapped in 100+ pounds of meat for all of your living days. But there’s a lot of bodily moisture (shoot me, please) to look forward to as parts of the U.S. get warmer, and as more and more confused people choose to move to those parts of the country.

Behold your future, courtesy of a study in Nature Climate Change:

Between 1970 and 2000, the U.S. averaged about 2.3 billion person days of extreme heat each year. But between 2040 and 2070 that number will be between 10 and 14 billion person days a year, according to the study.

The biggest projected increases in person days is the Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas census region where by mid-century heat exposure will increase by 2.7 billion person days. Right behind is south Atlantic region of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., where heat exposure is projected to increase by 2.2 billion person days.

That’s an increase of 400-600 percent in Americans’ exposure to extreme heat. Extreme heat is defined, for the record, as temperatures in excess of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the future, we are all Marissa Cooper, gently perspiring and weeping in a Tijuana bar:

Source:
Climate change meets population shift: More people will be hotter

, The Associated Press.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

sponsored post

Small-scale farmers fight back against the climate monster

“Small Scale Farmers Cool the Planet” shows how organic farmers just might hold the key to slaying the biggest beast of our age.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link: 

Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

by IvoryECCpmopww Posted on May 19, 2015

Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

By on 18 May 2015commentsShare

Sneakerheads are in the midst of a crisis, as they watch their prized possessions — those sick kicks they’ve been coveting for years — literally fall apart in their hands.

Turns out, those old-school Nikes are so out-of-this-world, they actually can’t survive Earth’s atmosphere. Wired has the scoop, and it’s truly heartbreaking. Take the story of Nagomo Oji, a Japanese sneakerhead who decided to whip out his DS/OG Air Max 95s with midsole BWs (DS = dead stock; OG = original; DS/OG = $$; BW = big window) after 20 years:

As soon as he planted his feet, Oji sensed something was terribly wrong. The midsoles flattened, and his footing became strangely unstable. He didn’t realize it at the time, but the polyurethane (PU), that squishy, shock-absorbing material sandwiched between the upper and the outer sole, was more than ten years past its projected lifespan.

After just one step, the hardened PU foam fractured and collapsed, like arid soil crumbling beneath the boots of a Dust Bowl Okie. Oji looked down in disbelief. With the inner soles completely detached from the uppers, his feet were actually touching the ground. His beloved Air Maxes had just morphed into Fred Flintstone shoes.

Or this tearjerker about a “geriatric hoarder” in Buenos Aires who has a whole showroom full of DS/OGs:

All of these shoes were found in various states of decay in one of the biggest known cases of PU mass destruction. Seven minutes into the video, collector Robert Brooks pulls a forgotten artifact labeled Silver Wind from the stacks. He’s elated. It’s an obscure Adidas runner that’s eluded him for “a long, long time.” But as he lifts the shoe, the sole peels off and falls into the box. Recounting the story later, he sighs and whimpers “No!” stretching out the syllable for a few seconds, like a Loony Tunes character plunging from a high cliff into the abyss.

The polyurethane-injected foam soles common in a lot of sneakers tend to spontaneously fall apart after a while. Who knew? Certainly not the executive director of the Polyurethane Foam Association, who spoke with Wired about the problem and seemed shockingly out-of-the-loop: “I’ve never seen a technical paper on polyurethane shoes falling apart. But now that you mention it, I’ve owned several pairs of shoes that started cracking inside and outside. I didn’t know if they were just poorly made or if I stepped into something.”

Come on, man! Try reading this 2011 study on the aging performance of polyurethanes, which says that plastics like the one used in these sneakers are susceptible to hydrolysis and oxidation. Here’s a translation from Wired:

That’s right, the two things that make human life possible — water and air — are killing our shoes. Their role in degrading polyurethane can be attributed to the chemical processes of hydrolysis (in the presence of moisture) and oxidation (in the presence of oxygen). Simply put, the humidity in the air, and, yes, even the air itself, seeps into the PU and, slowly but surely, breaks it into itty-bitty sticky pieces. Delve deeper into the subject, and the news only gets worse. Bottom line: Pricy collectables shouldn’t be made out of PU.

But there’s good news! SonBinh T. Nguyen, a chemistry professor at Northwester University, (jokingly) told Wired that sneakerheads can preserve their treasures if they just keep them in an “airtight steel vessel filled with argon.”

Zing! But seriously, isn’t this disintegrating sneaker fiasco really just one big metaphor for the impending demise of our species? We built a society that’s cheap, fast, and flashy. Sustainable? Not so much. And now, climate change is the water and oxygen to our DS/OG Air Max 95s. But good news! If all else fails, we could all just go live in steel bunkers.

Source:
The Sneakerheads Racing to Save Their Kicks From Decay

, Wired.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

sponsored post

Small-scale farmers fight back against the climate monster

“Small Scale Farmers Cool the Planet” shows how organic farmers just might hold the key to slaying the biggest beast of our age.

Get Grist in your inbox

Follow this link – 

Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble