I was chatting with a friend the other day about the ridiculous amount of paper and cardboard waste we usually find in products that are shipped and even purchased in stores. Big oversized boxes that contain small items are usually stuffed with tons of paper copious amounts of unrecyclable Styrofoam.

Right after our shipping bashing conversation, I stumbled upon this new company that makes sure to package their items with minimal waste and uses recycled content.

Boulder-based Newton Running has developed a new type of running shoe. One’s that use natural resources like recycled yarn shoe laces, recycled yarn in the webbing strip and a minimum of 10% recycled rubber in the outer sole of the shoes.

Newton has also taken it a step further and eliminated hangtags that highlight special, high tech materials provided to us by a number of vendors for production. This eliminates the paper and ink that is usually never read and often discarded. And to me, the best part is that the
shoebox is made of 100% post consumer recycled material.

Newton Running

The shape of the carton fits snuggly to the shape of the shoe and rather than stuff tissue paper inside of the shoes to help them retain their shape, Newton includes a pair of socks and a reusable shoe bag – one in each shoe.

A few other big name shoe retailers making more of an effort to be more sustainable include Nike, which released a basketball shoe made from manufacturing waste in Feb. ‘08, and Adidas, which claimed in March that it is using natural resources more efficiently to produce and package its products.

It’s a step in the right direction in terms of packaging. Now we just need all the companies that ship products to take into environmental consideration the waste that is created with over packaging.

Way to go Newton, I dig your eco-consciousness.