So many people comment on my shoes I thought I might as well put the information here for reference. TSA staff all seem to stare at my feet when I pass through a checkpoint, for example. Just the other day a TSA worker came over to me personally during a pat-down to compliment me. I guess if you work for the TSA you know shoes but they were really interested in my Brooks The Green Silence in Deep Royal/Brilliant Blue.
Although I study and practice social engineering every day these shoes have far exceeded any expectation I could have had. They have become one of my favorite tools to passively initiate conversations and mine for information. This photo shows how the left/right shoe colors are opposed to each other, which has really grown on me. I look forward to seeing more people with opposed colors on their feet.
I originally bought them because of their minimalist yet highly-efficient design for running (ultra-light, foot-wrap) and even more importantly the BioMoGo material.
We’ve added a non-toxic, natural additive to the MoGo compound that encourages anaerobic microbes to munch away once it hits an active enclosed landfill. Traditional Ethylene Vinyl Acetate™ (EVA) midsoles can last up to 1,000 years in a landfill. BioMoGo’s microbial munch rate is 50 times faster, biodegrading nutrients into reusable byproducts. Over the course of, say, 20 to 25 years or so, Brooks alone can save 29.9 million pounds of landfill waste. For you pigskin fans out there, that equals 1,277 football fields covered one shoe deep!
It sounds great yet my first pair (Black/Kelly Green) wore out in just 300 miles, which I am told by Brooks is to be expected. That is the only frustrating point for me since I doubt we can see 30 million pounds of waste saved if we our shoes wear four times faster. On the flip side the wear showed me a lot about how I was running and what to improve. Brooks has an answer for this too.
The best solution for all would be to keep waste from being generated and thus reducing the need for landfills. But with the current state of technology and the lack of existing alternatives for durable performance materials from rapidly renewable resources, Brooks feels improving the end-of-life outcome for its highly durable midsoles is currently the best available option.
Brooks specifically makes a point of educating people to reuse their shoes (see The Green Room) and supports organizations like Soles4Souls by donating shoes that can be reused by needy populations. But even after nine lives, shoes eventually will be thrown away—usually ending up in a landfill—and we are working to create a positive outcome for this that doesn’t currently exist.
Even better, Brooks provides a clear answer on how their “biodegradable” material has been tested to be compliant with recognized standards
…ingredients of BioMoGo have been tested at certified independent labs per the following protocols:
Anaerobic Biodegradation. ASTM D5210 – Standard Method for Determining the Anaerobic Biodegradation of Plastic Materials. University of New Mexico Department of Microbiology…
They have become for me the ultimate shoe to better study security and compliance.