by Sean Scott August 10, 2022

Here’s some good news for the whole planet. Blumaka reduces waste and water usage to make excellent soles and insoles for shoes. Millions and millions of shoe scraps are recycled and formed into some of the best-performing soles and insoles available on the market.

Read on to find out more about how this one company is making a difference. And how proud we are at COMUNITYmade to use Blumaka in some of our shoe lines.

Water is precious – that’s why we use 99% less

663 million people do not have access to safe water. This is a global crisis, and it’s getting worse. Thousands and thousands of organizations around the world do their best to preserve water. Blumaka is committed to doing its part. In the larger scheme of things, it may not be a lot, but they are proud of what they do, and they know that if everyone does their best, all of us will make a real difference.

To save water, Blumaka developed special processes that enable them to use 99% less water to produce their products. On average, Blumaka uses 4 grams of water to produce a pair of soles. That’s just 1% of what other companies use. This adds up to enough saved water to supply 200 million people with safe drinking water for a year.

 

Clean up the planet with high-performance with a high content of recycled shoe scraps

Normally, shoe companies produce their foam soles from natural resources. This takes a lot of energy and large quantities of water, resulting in a significant amount of waste for a pair of shoes.

Blumaka has figured out how to produce their foam shoe components by recycling insole scraps from other manufacturers that would otherwise send to landfills.

High-tech foam is essential, but...

So much of today’s footwear relies on the high performance, comfort, and durability of specially developed foam components. Athletic shoes, casual footwear, and fashion footwear help make today’s shoes achieve unmatched lightweight and toughness. Unfortunately, there is a downside.

The problems with foam

When Blumaka studied the industry, here’s what they found:

1. Creating foam materials uses unsustainable petroleum-based materials
2. Millions of tons of foam waste are created as part of using foam in the manufacture of products.
3. The entire process is dirty.

Petroleum-based compounds are used to make the foam in athletic and lifestyle footwear. These harmful to the environment chemicals become foam midsoles, foam insoles, virgin plastic parts, and nylon for uppers.

During the various stages, millions of tons of waste and scraps are either burned, releasing harmful chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere, or dumped into landfills where the plastic pieces break down into chemicals and microplastic components that contaminate soil, groundwater, and waterways.

Millions of gallons of water are used as part of the molding and shaping process and then released as wastewater.

The solution: Blumaka Clean Foam

Driven by the desire to help clean up the environment and preserve precious water, a team of passionate industry innovators revolutionized the entire foam process to create Blumaka Clean Foam. Through a patented process, Clean Foam address both the problem of scrap waste during manufacturing and the unsustainable amounts of water in making the material.

How clean is Clean Foam?

The proprietary process Blumaka uses achieves a 65% reduction in greenhouse gasses as compared to traditional Polyurethane and a 26% reduction as compared to Ethylene-vinyl acetate. Both of these are the most common foams used in footwear. Click here to learn more about how the Blumaka manufacturing process has 4 times less impact on the environment by cutting excess material needs.

How Blumaka makes Clean Foam

1. Scrap foam pieces that would otherwise end up in a landfill are collected and brought to our plant.
2. We sort and chop up these pieces to make them recyclable.
3. Using only 1% of the water traditionally used, we shape and mold the recycled material into foam components for shoes.
4. Our high-performance insoles and shoe parts are manufactured using 85% recycled ETPU foam content.

Here’s how to walk the walk with your shoes

Most people agree it’s important to clean up the planet. Yet, the problem is so enormous, so widespread that it can seem impossible to solve. So, where do we start?

So many factors originate beyond our control and even in other parts of the world. What can we do as individuals?

At COMUNITYmade, we are motivated to make the world a better place, and we are committed to doing our part right here in our own hometown and with our own shoes. We believe COMUNITYmade is a catalyst for change, inspiring action, participation, and empowerment of others in the community.

This is why we’re so excited and so proud to join hands with Blumaka to clean up the planet. Many of our shoes are made with Blumaka Clean Foam. We choose them because of their outstanding quality but most of all because doing our best for our planet is important to both Blumaka and COMUNITYmade.

 

 

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