Shoe brand Vivobarefoot and material science company Balena have created a prototype trainer that is 3D-printed from compostable materials.
Unveiled today at materials conference Biofabricate, the mono-material shoe was 3D-printed from a compostable, thermoplastic material created by Balena.
Described by Vivobarefoot as "scan-to-print-to-soil", the product will be created in a "fully automated process ? scanned on phone and automatically printed". The shoes were designed to be composted in an industrial facility.
Vivobarefoot created a 3D-printed compostable shoe
The company believes that the shoe will form part of a process of rethinking the current industrialised system of designing, manufacturing and disposing of trainers. "Whilst the current system might have been fit for the early part of industrialisation, it's definitely not fit for the future" Vivobarefoot co-founder Asher Clark told Dezeen.
"In contrast to that, our goal is to create a flagship solution ? one that's on demand, rather than from stock. We want it to be fast, digital, simple and ultimately an additive process," he continued.
"We want to build a system that creates product when you need using the only the materials you need when you need it, as opposed to an industrial system that's making huge mountains of stock with subtractive processes."
The brand describes the shoes as "scan-to-print-to-soil"
The trainers build on Vivobarefoot's VivoBiome...