Different plants are associated with a variety of health properties: the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), for example, is widely considered as a powerful healing plant with multiple benefits.
A robust wild flower and an ancient medicinal plant, it was used to improve metabolism and enhance digestion, but also as a detoxifying agent for the liver and as a treatment for hepatitis and urinary tract infections. People who dare to be more experimental also use it to make salads, smoothies, juices, soups, tea, coffee, wine, beer, and even blossom jelly.
But this plant that produces bright yellow blossoms that transform into a fluffy white seed head (of the kind we all love to blow to see the little see parachutes flying around...) and that grows in meadows, fields, and along roadsides, was never used to make shoes. Until now, that is.
Quite a few fashion houses and brands have been looking into alternative materials for their collections and, so far, we have seen clothes and accessories made with mushrooms, cacti and algae. American global performance lifestyle brand Cole Haan has instead turned to dandelions for the sole of its sneakers.
Dandelion was first used as an alternative to rubber latex from trees like Hevea brasiliensis during the Second World War. Around the 1930s, Soviet scientists had already developed rubber from this natural source found on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
When there were shortages of Hevea rubber during the Second World War, countries such as the United States, Britain and Germany, started cultivating dandelions to make rubber out of this plant. After the war, there was a return to the Hevea tree rubber because it was cheaper, but synthetic rubber became even cheaper, that's why it became even more popular.
Yet, in more recent years, with the climate emergency and worried about shortages that may be caused by using only certain sources for rubber trees (rubber plantations are mainly based in Asia and South America where they have expanded causing the deforestation of some areas...), tire manufacturers have been looking for more sustainable solutions.
The possibility of relaunching dandelion rubber has therefore been taken again into consideration by companies such as German manufacturer Continental that launched a collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute of Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology in Aachen, Germany, and created already in 2014 the first prototypes of Taraxagum, car and truck tires made with dandelion rubber (View this photo).
There are still studies about the pros and cons of dandelion rubber tires (they degrade faster and must therefore be replaced often, which means there would be a high number of dandelion rubber tiles in landfills…), and the most interesting thing highlighted in the researches is the fact that this plant can grown on relatively poor soils, so former industrial and heavily polluted sites could be used to grow dandelions.
Talking about researches about dandelions and sustainability, American label Cole Haan launched Generation Zerøgrand II (a green version of its popular Generation Zerogrand), a sneaker with an outsole partly made of natural dandelion rubber. The sole is fabricated with an innovative patent pending material, the lightweight FlowerFoam™, made from a minimum of 25% natural dandelion rubber extracted from the roots of the plant.
The sustainable sneakers - available on Cole Haan's e-shop and in selected stores, in men's and women's sizes and in a variety of colours (price: £115.00) - also include other recycled parts.
The upper integrates vegan microfiber suede made with 21% recycled content and reconstituted felt fabric made with 85% recycled plastic bottles (rPET); the laces are made from 100% rPET, while the Ortholite® Hybrid™footbed is made with 5% recycled rubber, 15% production waste foam and a fabric topsheet made from 100% rPET.
Cole Haan hopes this sustainable innovation will be the first of many and, to this aim, it has also launched the Change Forward™ initiative for sustainable innovation and natural design that aims at using naturally derived or recycled materials for many of its product components and to reduce waste throughout its supply chain, by introducing recycled materials in packaging and shipping cartons.
Dandelion rubber remains an option to keep in mind also for the cultivation/harvest ratio: as stated by tire manufacturer Continental on its site, it takes 200-250 square metres of cultivated land to produce 20-25 Kg of natural rubber (roughly two beach volleyball pitches). So, who knows, maybe in future we will see former industrial areas being converted into fields of bright and yellow sunny dandelions. For the time being, instead, we can enjoy walking on dandelion soles rather than through dandelion fields.
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