Upcycling rarely looks so sleek as it does in this collaborative project between a shoe company and ocean artist collective, which uses plastic bottles and nets to make fun new footwear.

Stitched together with fishing nets, these shoes by Parley for the Oceans and Adidas are part of a 50-pair prototype run. Each shoe is made of over a dozen plastic bottles.

The trash is collected, spun into fiber and turned into high-performance shoes. The trick is to scrub that fishy smell out of the nets before using it to stitch sneakers.

Parley partners with marine nations like the Maldives, Grenada and Jamaica to clean up fisheries and oceanfronts, teaching locals to gather, recycle and reuse plastic waste.

The post Old Fish Nets Used to Stitch Ocean Waste into Cool New Shoes first appeared on Gajitz.

The latest in active-system sportswear, Nike’s Hyperadapt 1.0 flash as the laces tighten and to indicate low batteries, but for those with disabilities (like Parkinson’s or arthritis), they could be a real boon beyond their sheer cool value.

Sensors in the shoes automatically tighten using tiny electric motors, but control buttons on the side let you manually adjust the fit as well.

The batteries are recharged wirelessly by induction, and a few-hour charge lasts weeks (the light slowly cycles from blue to yellow to red as the batteries run low).

“Wouldn’t it be great if a shoe, in the future, could sense when you needed to have it tighter or looser?” asks Nike. “Could it take you even tighter than you’d normally go if it senses you really need extra snugness in a quick maneuver? That’s where we’re headed. In the future, product will come alive.”

You could also loosen them between bursts of athletic activity, like the downtime during a basketball game, without entirely untying and retying laces. Between this and hoverboards, Back to the Future is finally becoming a reality.

The post The Future is Back: Automatic Self-Lacing Shoes by Nike first appeared on Gajitz.

For the COP21 conference in Paris, Adidas decided to rethink oceanic garbage, turning it into raw material for new 3D-printed footwear, with textures and colors hinting at its unusual origins.

The shoe consists of an upper made with ocean-harvested plastic and a 3D-printed midsole made from recycled polyester and gill nets, part of a larger exploration process the company is pursuing for reused materials.

The company says there is no reason to stand on the sidelines, even if political action is taking place internationally, and that business leaders need to step up and lead environmental efforts as well, in and beyond the footwear industry. One could argue that this is still a small step, or a greenwashing effort, but it at least shows the potential for new technologies to transform old manufacturing habits.

From Adidas’ project partners, Parley: “2015 is our year, the year of the oceans: the ocean movement successfully brought the cause onto the COP21 agenda in paris. Protecting life underwater became the 14th development goal of the united nations. With a framework of political goodwill in place, it is the right moment to transform words into action.”

“Therefore, Parley in Paris is all about updating knowledge, sharing visions, fine-tuning strategies, creating concepts and forging collaborations in order to kickstart change. W are really excited to have Adidas supporting us in this journey and showing how you can take concrete steps in the right direction.”

The post Wearable Waste: Shoes 3D-Printed with Plastic Ocean Trash first appeared on Gajitz.

A little like Iron Man armor but much lighter and free from external power sources, these ankle-enhancing add-ons represent a step in a new direction toward practical and easily removable exoskeletons.

They may not have built-in boosters to let you fly, but by reducing the work required to walk by 7% the Walking Assist Clutch provides the equivalent improvement of taking off a ten-pound backpack, lightening the load of ordinary walkers or injured persons (stroke victims or the partially paralyzed, for instance). “I’ll tell you, it feels really cool,” Sawicki said. “There’s a comfortable sort of squishiness for the first 10 minutes. But then it becomes totally transparent. Your body just integrates it.”

As the WashingtonPost reports, “According to study co-author Gregory Sawicki, a biomedical engineer and locomotion physiologist in the joint NC State/University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering, people using the braces don’t really notice the difference — until it’s gone.”

“Instead of adding an energy source to allow your muscles to expend less energy themselves, you’re just building a system that uses less energy as a whole. But the challenge is what drew us to the problem. After 7 million years of evolution as bipeds and some tens of thousands of hours of practice throughout a lifetime, is it even possible to reduce the energy of walking?” It turns out that it is, and for far cheaper than what more high-tech mechanical suits cost. While still definitely a prototype, the production of these augmentations is already much less expensive than powered competitors, raising the question of what other enhancements could be created that utilize the body’s own energies more efficiently rather than requiring external electrical assistance.

The post Slip-On Exoskeleton: Walk-Assist Boots Brace Your Stride first appeared on Gajitz.