Raw materials for Toms shoes
The Toms shoes are mainly made out of four components: canvas, rubber, dye and pig suede. It is a casual wear that is produced by lightweight and eco-friendly materials. Toms has become such a popular trend in recent years. And the invention of Toms can be track back in 2006, when Blake Mycokie first saw the Argentinean wearing a form of shoes called alpargatas. It is a simple slip on canvas shoes that is widely worn by most Argentinean, and it becomes a prototype for the classical style of Toms shoes later on. When Blake Mycokie went back to United States, he really liked the style of alpargatas shoes and he then applied the Argentinean’s idea and established the Toms Company. The Tomes shoes are simple and enduring, many people like it because it feels comfortable and it is easy to put them on. Moreover, Toms has an innovative notion that has never been done by any other shoes companies before. The “one for one” notion means that the Toms Company will give out a new pair of shoes to people in developing countries when a customer purchases a pair shoes in their retail store. This new idea certainly attracted many new customers. It makes people feel it is worthy to buy the shoes that they need, and at the same time, to help the poor to obtain a new pair of shoes. Another reason that makes people like Toms is the eco-friendly materials that are used; in terms, it creates less waste to our environment. And how did Toms become so successful by using eco-friendly materials? Lets take a look at the materials that Toms is using in its production.
Every pair of the Toms shoes is mainly covered by canvas, which is made out of cotton and post-consumer plastic waste. Cotton is a raw material that is come out from natural plants. It is a soft and fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll around the seeds of cotton plants called Gossypium. And the fiber comes out from the pure cellulose. Cotton is mostly grown in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. It is a cheap and endurable material that is widely used on our daily clothing, bed sheet, pillow and so on. The production process of turning cotton into canvas requires several important steps. First, farmers have to collect the cotton boll and extract fiber from it. Then they have to clean the fiber and extract the impurity. After that, twist the fiber into yarn, and combine the yarn into thread. Finally, weave the thread into a cloth. According to what Toms said, they are using organic cotton, which means they are creating even less environmental damage to our society. The organic cotton is grown without applying any synthetic pesticides and herbicides, in which the cotton will yield in less quantity per acre. Though, it will produce less carbon –dioxide emission to our atmosphere and less damage to the soil.
However, there is something more than cotton in the Toms canvas. Perhaps it wants to be more eco-friendly, so it adds post-consumer waste into the canvas to minimize the waste in our environment. Post- consumer wastes have been a serious concern to our society, because it is hard to find a place to fill up such gigantic waste. But Toms is willing to recycle the waste and turn it into production materials. The post-consumer waste also required several important steps to turn into polyester fiber. First, we have to collect the post-consumer waste (also known as PET waste), and then we crush it and press it into bales. In further process, we wash it and separate it into different types of plastic, because light colored plastic requires less mechanical process. After we obtained the clean PET waste, we shred the plastic into small fragments and remove the impurities, then we will get the pure PET fragments. The PET fragments will be used as a raw materials, decompose back into polyester fiber. Most of the products that we are using right now are base on the composition of polyester fiber, such as carpets, plastic container, clothing, etc. At the end, we can blend the cotton fiber and polyester fiber together and turn them into an organic canvas. In that way, we can minimize the plastic waste by recycling it into a useful material again.
The final canvas will come out as a soft and breathable textile. The interlacing of thread allows air to come in and out. And the cotton fiber combined with polyester fiber can form a strong and elastic canvas surface that is hard to break or damage. All the raw materials that are using to produce canvas are environmental friendly; this creates benefits for both the consumers and environment. At the end, through the mechanical process, we can cut and trim the canvas in the shape that we wanted. And then, use stitches to sew the pieces together into a canvas cover.
Next step of production process will be applying dye on the canvas. The dye that Toms is using is called AZO. The dye is lead free which creates less damage to both our human body and environment. AZO dyes are a large class of synthetic organic compounds that have nitrogen in it. It is produced using a derivative of naphthalene. A group of atoms called chromophore will form a dye molecule, which is largely responsible for color. And the molecule will form into compound. The compounds in the AZO dye called Aryl AZO compounds that are very stable and long lasting. It is commonly used in our daily commercial goods. It can produce many different colors including red, orange and yellow. After chosen the color that we want, we can mix the dye with water to make a dye solution, and we can put the canvas into the solution to dye in the color that we want. After the colored canvas is ready, we can add the base of the shoes combined with the canvas.
The base of the Toms shoes is made of a rubber. It is base on ethylene vinyl acetate (also known as EVA). It is the copolymer. It includes ethylene and vinyl acetate in it. Vinyl acetate often contains 10-40% part of it and the remaining part will be ethylene. We then boil the rubber into liquid form, and out the liquid rubber into a mold into the size that we wanted. With the dried rubber, we then have a completely well made rubber base. Basically EVA is a synthetic compound. It is perfectly put as the base of the shoes because it has low- temperature toughness and stress-crack resistance, waterproof properties and resistance to UV radiation. Which are the ideal functions to use as foot wears in daily life. It is also comfortable and light to walk on it. Which creates less pressure to our foot unlike high heel or heavy boots. With a finished base, then we can apply adhere glue in between the canvas and rubber to assemble it together.
Moving along with a completed toms shoe framework, we will be put an insole inside of the shoes for comfortable purpose. The Toms shoes insole is made out of pig suede. It is also considered as a raw material. The pig suede manufacturing process can be divided into three sub processes: preparatory stages, tanning and crusting. The preparatory stages include preservation, soaking, liming unhairing, fleshing, spitting, reliming, deliming, bating, degreasing, frizzing, beaching, picking and depicking. The next stage is tanning; it is a process aim to remove impurities of skin with the application of chromium. It is a chemical will penetrate the hidden impurities and allow it to soak. The last stage is crusting, it is a process to retanned, thinned and lubricated the skin. After the suede is clear and finished, we can apply dye to put color on it. Also, we can soften and dry the skin by applying other chemicals. Pig suede is often used for various goods including clothing, furniture covering and so on. By applying it inside the shoes, it can absorb sweat, disperse the pressure on our foot and minimize the friction between our foot and the rubber base. Finished suede required a lot more procedures than we can imagine. Often times, the manufacturing process of animals is much more complicated and time consuming than dealing with plants. And many companies are now using synthetic leather to save the time on production and slower the cost in buying the animal skins. Now, we have all the materials that are prepared. We can cut the pig suede into the size that we wanted and put it inside the shoes. Apply adhere glue between the pig suede and the rubber base to make it stable and firm. Then we can have a pair of completely well made Toms shoes.
Additional information, Toms decides to go even more eco-friendly. It offers a vegan collection to the consumers. The difference between vegan production line and normal production line is the materials that are being used in producing the shoes. In the vegan line, the shoes canvases are made by 67% hemp and 33% post-consumer plastic waste. The usage of post-consumer plastic waste portion is larger than the normal Tomes shoes. And the pig suede will be replaced by micro fiber canvas; also the base will use recycled rubber rather than rubber EVA. Furthermore, the shoes boxes are made from 80% recycled post-consumer waste and are printed with soy ink. This additional vegan collection is a great option for the people who concern about the environment and dislike leather products from animals. If the vegan collection is successful, it may open a new trend for the shoes industries, and more shoes options will be available for the eco-friendly customers.
Nowadays, everyone talks about going green. People start to pay more attention to our environment and many of us do care about the materials that are being used to produce our clothes and ornaments. And we started to see the shoes industries starting to transform, more and more industries start to add eco-friendly materials into their production. We can see manufacture producers start to pay more attention in environmental protection. Some famous clothing producers even ban fur clothing, and consumers start anti fur movement to protect our environment. Toms, as an eco-friendly