Shoe Dilemma: Ethics, not Aesthetics

Shoes get a lot of abuse. They have to walk through puddles in the rain, they get scuffed, they generally have an entire body's weight pressing into their soles. In the days before I had an obscene amount of shoes, I would wear through a good few pairs in a year (now, very few pairs get enough airing to get seriously worn). Shoes are pretty important as regards comfort, hygiene, not getting pneumonia and not getting lovely bits of glass lodged into our soles, but I've been questioning the ethical pros and cons of different kinds of shoes recently.


First up is leather. Leather is very resilient, waterproof and generally don't take no shit from nobody. It's a natural material too, so less harmful to ye olde environment and good for tootsie-hygiene. However, I'm a veggie. The veggie-dom is more out of habit now than anything, I renounced meat at about age 12 because I wuvved fwuffy widdle animals and thought it was the right thing for an animal-lover to do. Vegetarianism is an ethical minefield and I'll probably make a post on it some time, but simply put, after so many years of not eating meat it just seems a really odd thing to eat by now. I would never stop someone else from tucking into a nice steak, just like they wouldn't stop me from listening to Einsturzende Neubauten even if they thought that it was a really odd thing to listen to. So what's the toss-up? Should we refrain from buying leather as a symbolic pro-animal rights stance (because, as far as I'm informed, the hides used for leather are a by-product of the meat industry and not vice versa) or is it better to buy the more resilient material when we need to replace some worn-out shoes and cut down on consumerism?


Number two is natural fabrics - cotton etc. Natural materials are quite obviously better for nature in both manufacture and disposal. Problem is, with cloth shoes, there's a lot of disposal. They don't survive the rain, they don't survive the mud, they don't survive long walks and they don't survive many washings. There are a lot of (human) ethical issues too - the cotton trade isn't always the most fairly traded of trades (oh dear, the word 'trade' has now lost all meaning to me) and farmed en masse it isn't going to be so nice for the soil. The soles are often man-made (see below) which opens up another can of worms. However, lots clothes are made of natural fabrics and it's easy enough to buy environmentally non-hostile clothing. The main issue with fabric shoes is the excessive amount of them that would have to be consumed in order to keep up with the resilience of leather.


Finally, we have man-made materials. Vinyl, synthetic leather, plastic-based stuff. Fairly resilient but not so environmentally-friendly when it comes to manufacturing or disposal. On a hygiene level it's a bit dodgy too, but BO doesn't really come into ethics, unless you smell bad enough to wipe out a small country.

Most of my shoe collection is cloth and man-made, with a small amount of leather (old school shoes, my docs and a pair of heels or two). On the whole I would conclude cloth shoes as the most ethically sound but when it comes to hardcore walking they're not really going to last. Cloth works well for fashion purposes, but for wear-and-tear investing in well-made leather (I swear by my docs) or very strong synthetics is probably better in the long run than buying pair after pair after pair of cloth shoes every time you go on a city holiday, or get caught in a storm, or go on a hike. What's everyone else's opinion? Does anyone know of a strong, environmentally non-hostile ('cause in reality, nothing is really environmentally friendly) synthetic material?

Resolutions

I usually like setting little goals for myself but nothing in particular struck me before January 1st this year. No great loss, New Year's resolutions are a cute idea but I can make resolutions in March or September just as well. A couple of days ago a friend of mine was telling me about Buy Nothing Day and it struck me as a fantastic idea. However, one day of buying nothing, although it has a huge ideological impact when many people participate, isn't going to make much of a difference to my personal life. I can go out and buy that gorgeous dress the next day, having abstained simply because it was Buy Nothing Day. So, as well as participating in Buy Nothing Day when it rolls around next, I vow to take my aspirations to conscientious consumerism up another notch. Here's how:

& Buying vintage:

In fairness, I'll be buying secondhand, but 'vintage' removes a whole lot of stigma and sounds much nicer. I've already enacted this with books because most bookshops now have a good used section, and my college frequently has secondhand book sales where I'm tempted into adding another wing to my personal library (also known as my bedroom floor and already-overcrowded bookshelves) and completely neglecting to buy the books I need for my course.

Clothes are something more of an issue. Because my grandparents' and even my parents' generations were often made do with hand-me-downs, buying secondhand has something of a stigma around it in this country. Now that people are doing well for themselves, they want new things and want their children to have new things, 'the best', too. Charity shops tend to have slim pickings, and specialist vintage shops can be quite pricy. Thrift stores just plain don't exist here. Still, I have no excuse not to make an effort. Running into Topshop to pick up a new skirt might be much easier but there might be a similar item hanging untouched in a vintage shop somewhere that is cheaper, nicer and comes with the guarantee of not belonging to one of my classmates too. Plus, there's something immensely attractive about clothing from another era... but that's for another post on another day. Ebay and online vintage shops are a temptation as well, but they tend to leave something of a carbon footprint so I would have to balance the pros and cons of a particular order before clicking 'Buy'.

& Checking companies' backgrounds:

It isn't possible to boycott absolutely every single company that has ever done anything vaguely immoral since their conception. Still, just like with buying secondhand, it's better to make an effort of some kind than to do nothing at all. I'll keep an eye on the business section of the paper to see who's taking over whom, as well as visiting sites like Ethical Consumer and Adbusters regularly.

& Buying Irish/locally:

I'm by no means patriotic and I believe the global community is just as important as the local community, but by buying Irish products I'll leave less of a carbon footprint (I adore that term, being the cheesy creature that I am). I have already sacrificed my beloved kiwi fruits, and after the pain of that I can endure anything!

& Taking a 'slow and steady' approach:

Only ever buying vintage, organic, local, environmentally sound products from the get-go would be admirable, but not entirely easy. If I was to do that, I'd probably hit more than a couple of stumbling blocks, get frustrated, and give up. Hypocrisy is an awful thing, but if I, or anyone else who is trying to become a more conscientious consumer ends up buying from a large corporation, we don't become hypocrites for doing so. Some effort is better than none at all. The point is to cut back, not cut out, though maybe in a few years I'll be in the position to make a resolution to cut out entirely.

Buying something new, or from a major corporation is completely okay from time to time, as well as being unavoidable. We live in a world where we aren't self-sufficient and that's a good thing; it fuels a kind of community and solidarity. I'm going to start enacting these guidelines for myself bit by bit, getting used to each step before I move onto the next one. That way, this resolution will have longevity.

I'm completely open to suggestion and contradiction!