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Brand Creates Fashionable Footwear from Uncommon Materials

by Michalak876 Posted on March 5, 2013

Created by three friends who were influential in some of the most successful fashion footwear brands, such as Converse, Puma and Fila, Unstitched Utilities blends style and sustainability in a way that’s truly tough to beat. Earth911 sat down with co-founder and lead designer Kevin Crowley to learn more about how it all started for Unstitched Utilities and what the innovative upcycled brand plans to do next.

Made from recycled and recyclable materials, each pair of Unstitched Utilities shoes is a one-of-a-kind marriage of style and sustainability. Photo: Unstitched Utilities

An inside look at Unstitched Utilities

Unstitched Utilities was founded by former Converse designer Kevin Crowley, longtime Puma president Jack Steinweis and former Shane and Shawn sales manager Mark Kane and  brings upcycled materials and time-honored fashion trends together in a truly show-stopping way.

After spending years working with some of the most successful fashion footwear brands, the three friends say they were tired of big-time corporations holding them back from doing what they felt was right, so they decided to set out on their own.

Starting with Tyvek material, a recyclable thermoplastic, the partners launched Unstitched Utilities in 2009. The vegan-friendly line has since expanded to include innovative materials such as upcycled rice bags, biodegradable fabrics and material made from recycled magazine and newspaper pages.

Don’t Miss: 10 Awesome Upcycled Products from Ethical Ocean

Evolving from a pipedream into an emerging fashion sensation, Unstitched Utilities has come a long way in a few short years. But lead designer Kevin Crowley has his sights set on something even better – a 100 percent recyclable, cradle-to-cradle shoe.

“It would be great if we could make a shoe that would go 360 rather than go back into the landfill,” Crowley tells Earth911. “I’d love a cradle-to-cradle shoe…but that’s something we’re still working on now.”

While the idea is still in the early planning stages, Crowley describes his closed loop shoe concept as similar to the neon colored jelly sandals common on grade-school playgrounds. These old-school kicks are made with injection molds, meaning they can be created with only one material for easy recyclability.

Other concepts he’s considering include attaching decorative elements with chain-stitching (similar to the closures on pet food bags), so one component of the shoe can be removed and recycled before tossing the rest.

“Maybe the whole shoe can’t [be recycled] right off the bat,” Crowley says. “We’re trying to adapt to existing equipment, materials and machinery, but the idea would be that something is better than nothing.”

You Asked, Earth911 Answered: What Does ‘Close the Loop’ Really Mean?

Incorporating material made from recycled magazine pages, these street-fashion kicks are one of Unstitched Utilities’ top sellers. Photo: Unstitched Utilities

While pursuing his dreams of a cradle-to-cradle shoe, Crowley is steadily expanding the portfolio of upcycled and eco-friendly materials in the Unstitched Utilities line. Keeping his eyes peeled for the next big innovation, the designer dutifully attends trade and materials shows across the U.S. – examining everything from air conditioning ductworks to gardening materials to see if they could be put to use in a shoe.

“We’re trying to take creativity and fashion and hook it up to an environmental need,” Crowley explains.

Some of the brand’s most popular designs incorporate a cutting-edge material made from recycled magazines and newsprint. With an eye-catching look and an eco-friendly feel, Crowley says the company’s recycled magazine kicks practically fly off store shelves.

“The material from a fashion point is just drop dead gorgeous,” Crowley said of Unstitched Utilities’ magazine shoes. “They’re really high fashion. Everybody loves those shoes.”

More Uncommon Style: PHOTOS: Street Fashion Made From Old Umbrellas

The trio has plans to expand their line to include accessories like jewelry, backpacks and hats, as well as launch a boutique collection made from upcycled thrift store sweaters.

“I don’t think you do this sustainability thing in one swat, in any product or brand,” Crowley says. “It’s a balancing act you’re doing all the time, but we’re doing better today than we were three years ago.”

For more information on Unstitched Utilities, check out the brand’s website or pick up a pair of their sweet upcycled kicks at the company’s web store or one of our favorite online sellers, Ethical Ocean.

Want to score a pair for free? Ethical Ocean is giving away a bunch of awesome upcycled products right now, including a pair of sneaks from Unstitched Utilities. Click here to enter!

Homepage Image: Unstitched Utilities

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Brand Creates Fashionable Footwear from Uncommon Materials

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Are solar panels the worst thing for the environment ever? Um, no

by greenenergy4 Posted on February 11, 2013

Are solar panels the worst thing for the environment ever? Um, no

By Philip Bump

Solar panel users.

Some very bad news, American consumers. You know those solar panels that you thought were so “green”? Turns out that they’re completely terrible for the environment. Seriously. Completely terrible and awful and you’re basically personally responsible for the eventual decline and collapse of modern civilization if you use one. It’s sad, but true.

From the Associated Press:

While solar is a far less polluting energy source than coal or natural gas, many panel makers are nevertheless grappling with a hazardous waste problem. Fueled partly by billions in government incentives, the industry is creating millions of solar panels each year and, in the process, millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water.

To dispose of the material, the companies must transport it by truck or rail far from their own plants to waste facilities hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of miles away.

The fossil fuels used to transport that waste, experts say, is not typically considered in calculating solar’s carbon footprint, giving scientists and consumers who use the measurement to gauge a product’s impact on global warming the impression that solar is cleaner than it is.

You there. With the solar panel on your roof. Thanks for killing America.

To be fair, pollution is bad. The AP report suggests that pollution in the solar industry may be unusually high because of the industry’s rapid growth. But what we’re talking about isn’t pollution from solar panels, it’s pollution from manufacturing. That’s been a challenge for far longer than solar panels have existed.

The AP outlines how much pollution we’re talking about, at least in California: “46.5 million pounds of sludge and contaminated water from 2007 through the first half of 2011.” That’s about 11 million pounds of sludge and water a year. By comparison, the fracking industry used at least 70 billion gallons of water a year [PDF] in 2010. Some of that was recycled, but the industry still produces about 584 trillion pounds of waste a year. This is an apples-to-oranges comparison, but a very small apple and a very, very large orange.

Anyway, the AP added this toward the bottom of the article:

The roughly 20-year life of a solar panel still makes it some of the cleanest energy technology currently available. Producing solar is still significantly cleaner than fossil fuels. Energy derived from natural gas and coal-fired power plants, for example, creates more than 10 times more hazardous waste than the same energy created by a solar panel, according to [San Jose State University environmental studies professor Dustin] Mulvaney.

Excluding, presumably, the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Why count those?

As of my writing this, the Associated Press’ report hadn’t yet been picked up by Fox News or hailed by a Republican member of Congress. We will update the post when that eventuality occurs.

Never mind. Glenn Beck’s The Blaze picked it up. The headline is absolutely priceless. “Associated Press: Solar energy actually has a big ‘hazardous waste problem’ (and how much did Solyndra contaminate?)”

You can make this stuff up if you’re creative enough, but you never actually need to.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Are solar panels the worst thing for the environment ever? Um, no

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We’re on the verge of a scary undersea gold rush

by donseoo Posted on February 6, 2013

We’re on the verge of a scary undersea gold rush

By Susie Cagle

Two of the most popular shows on cable television right now are about digging for gold. Exciting! Gold! One of these shows, the Discovery Channel’s Bering Sea Gold, focuses on the human difficulties and dangers of digging for gold under the sea floor off the coast of Alaska.

This pursuit of material mineral riches seems like it might be a bad idea for these individuals, especially that dude with the bloody hand. But when the gold is even deeper under the sea, digging it up could be an even worse idea. And at today’s inflated gold prices, digging up the ocean will be as lucrative as it could be destructive.

National Geographic’s feature story on deep-sea mineral mining sets up a scary proposition for the Solwara 1 site in Papua New Guinea especially, where one company hopes to blaze a path into the deep with new mining technologies that could allow for the scooping up of billions if not trillions of dollars worth of deep-sea minerals.

[A] fledgling deep-sea mining industry faces a host of challenges before it can claim the precious minerals, from the need for new mining technology and serious capital to the concerns of conservationists, fishers, and coastal residents.

The roadblocks are coming into view in the coastal waters of Papua New Guinea, where the seafloor contains copper, zinc, and gold deposits worth hundreds of millions of dollars and where one company, Nautilus Minerals, hopes to launch the world’s first deep-sea mining operation …

Samantha Smith, Nautilus’s vice president for corporate social responsibility, says that ocean floor mining is safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly than its terrestrial counterpart.

“There are no mountains that need to be removed to get to the ore body,” she says. “There’s a potential to have a lot less waste … No people need to be displaced. Shouldn’t we as a society consider such an option?”

But mining a mile below the sea’s surface, where pressure is 160 times greater than on land and where temperatures swing from below freezing to hundreds of degrees above boiling, is trickier and more expensive than mining on terra firma.

It’s trickier in part because the same undersea hydrothermal vent spots that are so full of gold and other fancy mineral deposits are also full of awesome sea creatures like seven-foot-long tubeworms and giant snails.

Conservationists also say they want to know more about the vent ecosystems and how they will be mined.

“The whole world is new to the concept of deep-sea mining,” says Helen Rosenbaum, coordinator of the Deep Sea Mining Campaign, a small activist group in Australia that campaigns against mining the Solwara 1 site.

“This is going to be the world’s first exploitation of these kinds of deep resources. The impacts are not known, and we need to apply precautionary principles,” she says. “If we knew what the impacts were going to be, we could engage in a broad-based debate.” …

A report released in November 2012 by the Deep Sea Mining Campaign ties exploratory pre-mining activities and equipment testing by Nautilus to “cloudy water, dead tuna, and a lack of response of sharks to the age-old tradition of shark calling.”

Shark calling is a religious ritual in which Papua New Guineans lure sharks from the deep and catch them by hand.

In the past 10 years, a dozen exploratory permits have been issued to governments around the world for drilling into international waters. Any over/under bets on when this all goes horribly wrong?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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We’re on the verge of a scary undersea gold rush

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