Would you like to be the shoemaker for your village? Making shoes locally, from ecological materials, could be a great contribution to your community, yourself -- and the planet.
You can learn to make ecological footwear for fun or profit by watching my video series. I plan to make new videos of many different simple shoemaking techniques and to show how to make a variety of styles of simple shoes.
Following my directions, your shoes will be made from repurposed or remnant leather, felted wool coats or heavy fabric, natural rubber or inner tube and will be assembled using a non-toxic shoe cement.
Five billion shoes are being made each year, with more and more being made entirely from petroleum-based materials. If we locally make shoes, using only already-existing materials, we are not adding anything to landfills and furnaces that wasn't already headed there someday, and we have not caused anything new to be manufactured.