Shoes

For my inquiry I am doing the history of shoes and how they impact on the natural world.

Oldest shoe ever found

The worlds oldest leather shoe is made from a single piece of leather laced with a leather cord along seams at the front and back, it was found in a cave in Armenia in 2008 and is believed to date to 3,500 BC. The earliest known shoes are sandals dating from about 8000 to 7000.

Advances in shoes

Since the mid-20th Century, advances in rubber, plastics, synthetic cloth, and industrial adhesives have allowed manufacturers to create shoes that stray from traditional crafting techniques. Leather, which had been the primary material in earlier styles, has remained standard in expensive dress shoes, but athletic shoes often have little or no real leather.

Advances in shoes

Soles, which were once hand-stitched on, are now more often machine stitched or simply glued on. Before the 1850's Shoes were made by a shoemaker working in a small shop with hand tools. By the 1850's shoes would be manufactured in factories. All through the 19th and 20th centuries new shoe factories came and went. Each company had a new idea about shoes, from how they they were made to what they looked like

Tools in shoe making

Efforts had been made to develop machinery for shoe production. They had all failed and it remained for the

shoemakers of the United States to create the first successful machinery for making shoes.

In 1845 the first machine to find a permanent place in the shoe industry came into use. It was the Rolling Machine,

which replaced the lapstone and hammer previously used by hand shoemakers for pounding sole leather, a method

of increasing wear by compacting the fibres.This was followed in 1846 by Elias Howe's invention of the

sewing machine. The success of this major invention seems to have set up a chain reaction of research and

development that has gone on ever since. Today there are no major operations left in shoemaking that are not done

better by machinery than formerly by hand.

This was followed in 1846 by Elias Howe's invention of the sewing machine. The success of this major invention seems to have set up a chain reaction of research and development that has gone on ever since. Today there are no major operations left in shoemaking that are not done better by machinery than formerly by hand.

Natural world

Uses up natural resources Rubber Leather Energy

Pollution Old shoes Rubbish from packaging Factory’s

Solutions to pollution

Nike have collected 25,056,779 pairs of shoes since 1990. This is enough shoes to go around the world 5 times!

They recycle the shoes to go into sports surfaces. Between 10 to 40% of the sport surface can contain recycled shoes. A soccer pitch can contain up to 75,000 shoes!

If you want to recycle your old sports shoes you can take them to Rebel Sports.

Conclusion

Shoes have evolved to meet our needs in fashion and in practicality. There are a lot more materials and technology's available These days than before when shoes were first invented. It is good that some shoe company’s making an effort to recycle shoes because there a lot of landfills filled with shoes.

Bibliography

www.nikereuseashoe.com www.shoeinfonet.com Www.wikipedia.com Mum and Dad