How to Go Green: Shoes for Women

The conventional shoe industry produces a lot of toxic products in the process of manufacturing shoes and footwear. Harmful chemicals like chromium which are used in leather tanning can cause cancer while solvents, adhesives and volatile organic chemical compounds used in leather finishing and other synthetic parts of footwear produce air pollutants harmful to our health and the environment.

It is our collective responsibility to relieve the people working in such hazardous conditions and help ourselves by keeping this industry eco-friendly. In this effort each one of us must go green and make a switch to eco-friendly shoes.

When it comes to shopping for green women's shoes, you can find ecologically responsible footwear options at many outlets these days. Many big industry players like Nike are now offering a line of environmentally friendly shoes. They use leather from tanneries that have adopted more eco-system conscious practices. They also use less toxic dyes and more natural, unbleached and biodegradable materials in these shoes.

Eco-friendly shoes typically use natural fibers from sources like organic cotton, cork, wool, silk, hemp, coconut and bamboo. Water based biodegradable adhesives are used to bind the various pieces of the shoes together. Some products also use recycled plastics, recycled shoes, recycled rubber from tires and recycled paper. Particularly, the packaging for the shoes typically comes from recycled cardboard and recycled paper.

When you are looking to buy 'green' women's shoes, look for the label insert describing the materials used in manufacturing it.

Nike's "Considered" line of shoes offers a wide range of eco-friendly sports shoes and sneakers for women.

El Naturalista offers a nice range of stylish eco-friendly women's shoes. You can find boots, casual, dressy and formal footwear in their collection. You can buy their products from Amazon.

Stores like Mooshoes offer a line of leather-free women's shoes. Not having leather eliminates toxic chemicals used up in tanning and finishing of the material. They call them vegan-shoes because no animal sources are used in manufacturing their footwear.

Eco-friendly women's shoes do not compromise on the look, feel and comfort. In fact they are in vogue these days with many celebrities flaunting their go-green attitudes. So tune into the current fashion trends and this spring, go green. Reduce your carbon footprint with your eco-friendly footwear!