Confronted with an ever-growing pile of old newspapers, Taiwan fashion designer Colin Lin came up with the idea of using them to make shoes and tote bags for her environmentally friendly footwear company.

Taiwan designer Colin Lin displays shoes made out of recycled newspapers. Lin's footwear company produces shoes and tote bags for green-minded consumers around the world.

Lin, 50, says they are now hot items in Taiwan as well as in the United States and Europe, finding a niche with green-minded customers who have a fondness for novelty.

Since the products were launched late last year, the firm has sold about 4,000 pairs of shoes made of recycled newspapers, Lin said, a fraction of its many lines of footwear.

Both the shoes and tote bags are very much in line with Lin's environmentally friendly approach to business -- an approach that in recent years has led her to use fish skin and raffia as replacements for leather.

"My concern is for comfort, fashion and the environment," she said.

Lin's shoes and tote bags stand out in a crowd because they are replete with the telltale Chinese characters that are printed in Taiwan newspapers and the colorful photos and advertisements that accompany them.

Both products go through a time-consuming manufacturing process and neither comes cheap. A pair of paper shoes takes three to four hours to make and sells for US$100-150, while a tote bag takes as much as two to three days and can go for up to US$260.

"You can't imagine how many chemicals are used in each process of regular shoemaking," said Lin, "and I try to do away with them as much as possible."

To make her newspaper strips durable and sturdy, Lin attaches a cotton lining to the back, and adds a plastic coating to give them a shiny, waterproof finish. Then the woven top is glued to a rubber sole.

Lin, who has been in the shoemaking business for 26 years, is keen for her business rivals to follow her lead.

"I only contribute very little to recycling all the newspapers dumped every day around the world," she said.

"But other footwear and bag manufacturers may want to copy my idea and so contribute their own share to dealing with the problem."

Read more: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200911/20091121/article_420158.htm#ixzz0XYPA6jOV

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