Friday, November 10

It's insidious, but we're being bombarded every day with 'gentle' encouragement about how we should spend our money and, to an extent, I can cope with that, but now we're being pressured in how we should think.  Browsing the Internet the other day, I found my attention drifting to a little article about the ethics of buying shoes.  I didn't know that ethics was part of this mundane activity.

Oh, yes, there's more to buying shoes than picking the right size and negotiating a reasonable price.  If you buy a name-brand sneaker, you have to be aware of the toxic chemicals that go into their manufacture, and the fact that even the most expensive ones are made by exploited child labour in China or some other third-world country.  So, maybe it's better to stick to old-fashioned, tried and true leather.  However, there's another whole can of worms associated with that decision.

The article showed pictures of the appalling leather tanneries in India and talked about the early deaths resulting from the chrome used in the process, as well as more child labourers who work in slave-like conditions.  

Not wanting to go through life bare footed, I had a dig around for sustainable, ethical alternatives, and stumbled across a new product called pinatex (the n should have a ~ accent but I haven't got a Spanish keyboard). For generations, weavers in the Philippines have been hand-weaving the fibre from pineapple leaves into a beautiful shiny fabric which is used for high-quality garments like the Barong that men wear on formal occasions.

Now, a new process can turn pineapple leaves into a leather substitute which makes great shoes.  The material is like a suede and is manufactured in a city called Labo and sold to hand-picked designers.  Marilyn and I know Labo well as it's the nearest big city to our friend Kit's resort on San Miguel Bay.  In fact, we were involved in a project to help build a new school for a farming village on the outskirts of the city, where they grow pineapples.  Serendipity!

I pushed on to see where I could buy the shoes in Australia and was directed to a Vegan web-site.  Vegan?  I don't want to eat them.  Not content with trying to change our diet - pushing nut cutlets and soy marshmallows - they've moved on to infiltrating such diverse causes as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Same Sex Marriage, and now they want to tell us what to wear on our feet.  Is there no end to it?