Luc Houle, 33, calls the shoe Johnny—a nod to Johnny Appleseed, who introduced apples to North America in the 1800s. Houle spent seven years designing Johnny from biodegradable materials with an apple seed hidden in the sole. When buried, the shoes attract microbes that break down the outsole in about 3 years. At some point during that process, the fertilizer-coated seed is freed into the soil.
“Plastic sticks around for about 1,000 years after we throw it away,” Houle tells blogTO. “I kind of wanted to do something to fix that.”
The shoes will be available in black and white and manufactured at ethical, fair trade factories China. If enough pre-order the shoes on Kickstarter for $109, Johnny will be put into production and shipped by next summer.
“The nice thing about this project is that because it’s a biodegradable sneaker that grows into a tree, we can kind of help number one, offset people’s carbon footprint, but we’re also helping eliminate plastics,” Houle adds. “And the more people we can reach with that the more of an impact we can have.”