The moment our old friend Mr. Sunshine makes his presence known, socks and lace-up shoes are typically pushed aside in favor of those perennially toe-baring delights known as flip-flops, and boy, what a relief they are. Bestowing the wearer with an instant form of eco-friendly air conditioning during seasonal heat waves — often for as little as one solitary dollar per pair — the rubber-soled wonders seem innocuous enough, but Mother Nature would likely disagree.
Here’s the first problem. Today’s models are commonly made with crude oil-based polyurethane (aka #7 plastic) rather than sustainably produced natural latex rubber, and are almost always excluded from municipal recycling programs.
They are also so impossibly affordable and manufactured in a rainbow of alluring colors and patterns that consumers can easily justify owning a dozen or more pairs, which ends up fueling hyper-consumerism. Rather than spending the time to repair or even creatively upcycle a flip that has met its final flop, we typically chuck and replace what is no longer up to snuff since there’s always an infinite, budget-worthy supply at our fingertips.
- Create handmade rubber stamps for your children by tracing cookie-cutter shapes onto soles, carefully cutting them out with an X-Acto knife and then using a Speedball or Staedtler 1V gouge tool to carve designs that can ultimately be inked.
- Shred the soles and use the resulting material as a decorative gift bag/gift basket filler or reusable Easter basket “grass” alternative; you can also use it to cushion fragile objects while shipping/storing them, or stuff pillows/pet beds with it.
- Make pet toys… or children’s toys — visit UniquEco’s website for fantastic inspiration.
- Need a thoughtful yet affordable gift for a party host? Make a set of beverage coasters that you customize with doodads and trim.
- Looking for a naturally waterproof form of entertainment for the kiddies during bath time? Recycled flip-flop soles can be easily transformed into chunky letters, numbers and shapes if you have a steady hand and a sharp blade.
- Got the DIY bug? Flip-flops can be quickly turned into miniature thumbtack-ready message boards; or, you might just want to cobble a whole collection of them together in one large, recycled picture frame.
- If you’ve amassed a large collection of world-weary flip-flops, it wouldn’t be too hard to make a wastebasket out of them, or even a colorful doormat.