Shoebox is 100% Recycled. But Wait, There's More...

This is a great idea. Nike, Adidas? Jump on at anytime.

great idea. expensive shoes.

What about shipping? Wouldn't it be more efficient to ship them in a rectangular box, because you would be able to ship more in the same space?

This is some of the best 'green' packaging design I've seen in a VERY long time! Form actually follows function, the materials are 100% recycled and the packaging is minimal. Congrats to whomever developed the design for thinking outside the 'box' (pardon the pun).

Not a good idea. You wont fit anymore of these into a shipping container and ordinary cardboard boxes can be recycled anyways

How toxic is the glue used in these shoes? Will this company be posting the ingredients in the glues used in their shoes?

Ordinary cardboard shoeboxes can be reused in many ways. I love them. They are "green" because they can be reused to death, then composted. I'm still using shoeboxes I got 20 years ago!

This idea is a step in the right direction. I doubt this design would holdup to overseas travel in containers. The odd box shape and lack of tissue are problems. The tissue helps prevent wear on the shoes caused by their rubbing and vibrating together. Consumers don't want to buy shoes that don't look perfectly new. The box shape will have similar deterioration from the boxes rubbing together. The consumer perception of a worn box is that the shoes are old or may have been returned. Retailers, large and small, know this and demand a certain level of box quality.

The best think about this box is that it's not printed or coated. Most of the shoe manufactures use large-scale printers in China and Korea with outmoded technology and little attention to VOCs.

good Idea..

@ Brian.

draw a box around the pair of shoes, and compare the material used for each....you'll find that the material for the box design above is less. calculate that amount, over a million boxes like that is a lot of material saved, less material to waste at the consumer end and ultimately go back into recycling. over time, the cost will go down.

@ Ross

those boxes stack up as easily as rectangular ones. So shipping will be no problem

Sid:
They won't ship as easily. Think about it. Sure, they can be stacked. But can they be uniformly put together, side by side, in a crate. If you put three of these boxes next to each other, there would be gaps. A better solution is to stick with a small, rectangular box, and make it out of 100% post-consumer recycled materials. Then, it is even easier for people to reuse the box (as other commenters have mentioned).

Paper pulp is not green, the recycling process uses ridiculous amounts of water. And although the water can be reused it is not cost effective.

This looks like an idea with plenty of wider applications. Anything we can do to lessen the unnecessary use of resources and energy has got to be good and the cleaner technology is a big plus, too.

I think that shoeboxes are not the problem...

That's just dumb. I can always use more boxes, so those old shoeboxes tend to be reused for storing crap.

This thing is hideous looking and has a nasty form factor and I'd chuck it away just as soon as I got the shoes home.

@Ross - Square boxes just put the unused space on the inside of the box, rather than the outside. Plus, I can see these boxes being packed upside-down, interlocking the overhang on the top so that they can fit in less space than a conventional box.

Of course, I wear canvas high tops that can be collapsed down to almost nothing.

Fantastic, about time! Great design, so nice with companies that dare be a little different!!

I think that's good, I wouldn't mind buying shoes in that type of package though usually the shoes I buy don't have a package at all which is even more eco-friendly... anyway, some people tend to reuse shoe boxes to store things.

Good balance of comments-good to read that everyone's not jumping on the "it's new/different,
so it's cool". Needless to say, there are + and -;
a life cycle analysis or similar audit might help an assessment or a trial to see real life issues. Then it can be improved over time-maybe it'll turn out to be a worse idea than what it replaced-at least it was tried-might lead to the next generation of improvement. Those in the business who will be dealing with it are the ones I'd be interested in hearing back from...

I can't believe all the snickering negative comments, i.e. people debating whether this new box can be stacked or not, without even perhaps asking the company if they have a method (i.e. a piece of string, or something simple) to hold the boxes together and ship them just fine.

Get a life people. This company is trying to reduce waste. This is one way to do so. If they did not do this, they could be like any other shoe company and NOT do anything to reduce waste. There is nothing even vaguely positive about doing nothing to reduce your environmental impact. Hopefully they will do more and more over time.

Whether an old-school shoebox can be re-used or recycled is beside the point... any container can be re-used for something, even this one. The older square box and tissues takes way more resources to create, and nothing will justify using more resources than necessary. Please don't post another comment about how there is no way these boxes can't be shipped without quoting the company exec stating so, first. Uneducated assumtion used to bring down a potentially good idea is a waste of all of our time.

Next treehugger article, please...

(p.s. Treehugger desperately needs proof-readers.)

We're a little late to the party here, but we were frankly surprised by all the media coverage of a box that we never actually produced....

The shoebox featured in this story was designed by our advertising agency and submitted to several design competitions. We liked this design but after a lot of research we discovered it is not very sustainable for us to produce or ship the molded pulp shoe boxes.

We learned that not only were the pulp boxes significantly more expensive to make, but they are produced far from the footwear factory and they would dramatically increase overall freight costs because they do not stack in containers, warehouses or retail stores efficiently (as predicted in several comments).

Newton has instead developed a new rectangular shoebox that is produced from 100% post consumer waste and uses soy-based inks. The new packaging is easy to store and ship, it’s lightweight and it’s easy to break down and recycle. Read more about our environmental assessment and packaging audit here: www.TheRunningFront.com

I used to work for a major shoe retailer, and just to ease all of your worries, shoes are routinely shipped (directly from the manufacturer) in regular cardboard shipping boxes with maybe 20 to 30 individual shoe boxes in each. So I don't really think there would be a stacking problem at all, and this seems like a great idea.

Newton has worked very hard from the beginning to be a green, sustainable company. Although only 40 prototypes of this carton were produced, it was a more than worthwhile experiment; much was learned in the process. If anything it is testimony to Newton Running's drive to innovate and find better solutions.

The design may not be as practical as we wished in development, but it opens the door for others to find where and when this kind of solution makes sense.

Thanks for all the kind words.

The folks at tda advertising & design

Alright, that's just plain awesome. I've bought enough running shoes to build a house out of the boxes.

Of course with these box they will also compost I guess.

nike's shoebox is also made from 100% recycled content, even the tissue paper. it's printed with water based inks (actually better than soy based), is engineered to minimize materials, and eliminate weight.

I love that box design! The idea to use socks and a shoe bag to fill the shoes instead of tissue paper is great too. Hopefully, more shoe companies will adopt these ideas.

Nike jump on? Apparently you missed that the pegasus at the top is a nike shoe.

Dude this is so weird, my bro's dad owns this company. And I used to chill at the headquarters all the time. Damn that's insane