PVC & PU For Fashion - How Unhealthy Are They?

Even cotton burning will give off toxic Formaldehyde and Acrolein. Anytime you burn something a chemical reaction takes place. So you will most likely get hazardous fumes.

PVC has a high temperature of combustion. If the temperature in the room has reach that point you have no need to worry of carcinogenic fumes. Your already dead from the heat.

What about the environment. If that is the determining factor. No shoes at all would be best.

Maybe you should look at some of the bio-plastics. They seem to fit your customer base.

Shouldn't vegans go barefoot??

http://naturalrunner.ca/jambu-barefoot-vegan-review/

Just the shoe for a New England winter. But then again, anyone who would spend $200+ on designer shoes, would not be walking around in them in the snow and slush. They would probably be vacationing in their winter home in the tropics.

Ha Ha,No.

My wife is one of those people and we had numerous discussions about wearing the correct footwear for the conditions at hand. She likes open footwear so she can show off her nice feet which is fine with me but unfortunately we also have Poison Ivy around the property and sub zero weather in the winter.

After several failed discussions about both I said fine wear what you want but if you get into the Poison Ivy your feet are going to look like my arms did when I got into it and if you freeze your toes off your feet are going to be damn uggle without them!

Her solution was to simply never leave the house unless it's to go to work or come home.

TCM, if you even need the money, you could just write up an autobiography and sell it to stand-up comedians desperate for material. Even the 'big names' would love stuff like this, it'll break them out of their rut of doing standup about airplanes and hotel rooms. (Good standup is based on what you see around you, when a standup comic gets famous and spends all their time on tour all over the country, what to they see? Comedy Club. Hotel. Airplane. Hotel. Comedy Club. Hotel. Airplane.)

"What's the deal with airline food?" -Jerry Seinfield in the middle of a bit about standup comics that get stuck in the airplaine-hotel rut. He was bringing it up as an example of the routines he WON'T do on stage, hence the "quoting myself" done of voice as he delivers the line.

Your demographic may be hesitant to use "plastic" shoes.

Of course "genuine leather" might turn them off too.

You should require your supplier to give you MSDS for your specific product (this is an example)

FLEXIBLE VINYL MSDS MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET ...

and toxicology reports on the materials they want to sell you.

This is out of my area these days and there may be barrier materials or films for sensitive skins.

My advice is to make your supplier satisfy you with test results and samples before committing to any large purchases.

Good luck.

These are quite stylish - and 'renewable'. Of course, a tree has to die to create them. But when they wear out, just throw them in the fireplace.

Well you got your bamboo shoes....and they make fabric now out of bamboo, very soft...put some old tire treads on the bottom, and there ya go....

Great for traction, not so good for road noise -

That "bamboo fabric" is indeed very soft. I have several pairs of "bamboo" socks. But at least the ones I have can only be called "bamboo", because scrap bamboo is the source of the cellulose used to make the rayon.

Most items made from rayon could accordingly be called "wooden", since wood is the more common source for the cellulose used to make the rayon.

I've seen how those are made, if memory serves, it was that Science chancel show "How It's Made." Those shoes are also sturdy enough to qualify as Safety Shoes, with protection equivalent to Steel-Toed Boots.

Interesting set of questions. Kudos for considering all these aspects, and trying to achieve a sustainable and healthful business model.

I don't remember any details about Corfam^TM, a Dupont synthetic leather from the 1970s or so, but I think it was breathable, which you would want. Continuous membranes like PVC, PE, or PU could be made breathable by closely-spaced laser "punchings", which might give a stippled texture resembling natural skins.

At the manufacturing level, there are no doubt solvents that need to be controlled via PPE, ventilation discharge scrubbers, and the like, but I don't think significant toxicity carries over to the final product. I could be wrong about that, but then various metallic pipe materials have their own problems, too.

These are just a few thoughts. By all means keep pursuing your goals according to the good criteria you have recognized.

I remember the Corfam hype -

From Wikipedia -

Corfam[edit]

The first poromeric material was DuPont's ill-fated Corfam introduced in 1963 at the Chicago Shoe Show.

Corfam was the centerpiece of the DuPont pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair in New York City. Its major advantages over natural leather were its durability and its high gloss finish that could be easily cleaned with a damp cloth. Its disadvantages were its stiffness which did not lessen with wearing, its relative lack of breathability, and easy confusion with non-breathable cheaper products. DuPont manufactured Corfam at its plant in Old Hickory, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1971. After spending millions of dollars marketing the product to shoe manufacturers, DuPont withdrew Corfam from the market in 1971 and sold the rights to a company in Poland.

Corfam is still used today in some products, an example being certain types of equestrian saddle girth. Corfam shoes are still popular in uniformed professions where shiny shoes are desirable.

Military spit-polish, eh?

No, the military still prefers REAL leather shoes and boots, to be cleaned and polished with REAL wax-based shoe polish.

When you have several hundred warriors sitting around in a rear area, not fighting, you HAVE to keep them busy with other tasks so they don't get bored and start fighting each other, or attacking random passers-by.

(The Military really mind-[*BLEEP*]s the soldiers to make them good fighters, but until they're 'deprogrammed' at the end of their enlistment, they're not really safe to keep around civilians.)

I also am interested in this question.

I am looking for an alternative to clear flexible PVC - the type used in pencil cases / toothbrush packs etc.

Main concern is tox production in manufacture, and in disposal - but it needs to be flexible, & RF or thermally weldable? The level & type of plasticisers in the finished product are items of concern.

Grateful for any wisdom - ;-)

TIA, Stuart.

As a lover of leather, I can only claim that these artificial materials incline to make your feet stink!

Have you Looked at this material?
http://materia.nl/article/pinatex-pineapple-material-watch-2015/