My job keeps me on my feet €“ literally €“ for eight hours a day. At about a mile an hour (yes, I clocked it with a pedometer), I put in forty miles a week just at work. My feet were no longer happy with me and getting quite vocal about it. I needed arch support, and I needed it bad -- by Jocelyn Tutak
Enter Dansko€™s Professional clog, the shoe of choice for doctors, nurses, chefs, and nearly anyone else whose job requires more than a bit of standing. This shoe carries the "Seal of Acceptance from the American Podiatric Medical Association," and it takes that title seriously. Podiatric bliss doesn't come cheap, so I do a little research. My coworkers swear by them, and I even get a deal by buying them for work. The website promotes peace and earth-friendliness, and the company began as a mom-and-pop business. You'd think they were saving the world with each step taken with their anti-skid tread. All is well until I check the specs on this Danish wonder-clog: The inner frame is made with PVC.

Devil in a red shoe?
For those of us who can't keep all these plastics straight, #3 PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, has been deemed one of the worst of the bunch. Bill Walsh, founder of the Healthy Building Network wrote in Grist that €œthe weight of available evidence tells us that...it may well be the single most important source of many of the worst toxic chemicals plaguing the global environment today.€ The Green Guide rates PVC, the second most commonly used plastic worldwide, as one of three risky plastics. Its production and incineration release the hormone disrupter and carcinogen dioxin, and its primary component, vinyl chloride, is also a carcinogen. PVC also leaches adipates and phthalates when in contact with hot, fatty foods; these chemicals can cause birth defects and damage to the liver, kidneys, lungs and reproductive systems of mice. To top it all off, #3 PVC is rarely accepted by community recycling programs, further adding to the waste stream. And there it is, smack dab in the middle of the clogs that might just save my feet.

So I called Dansko, to discuss my concerns. Did they have any plans to discontinue the use of PVC in their most popular, healthful style? The girl I talked to didn't know what PVC was or the potential danger it held. After a quick lesson, she still didn't know about the clogs, but at least I felt better about spreading the word about PVC. I emailed, I researched, hoping to find an alternative. But I didn't. My brain said "No!" but my feet said, "Yes, yes, please, yes!"

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 I confess: I bought the shoes, and I love them. Gone are the days of aching arches and limping around on feet screaming for relief. I cruise around work with my feet on a Danish cloud. So I think to myself: They won't be leaching any phthalates into my food. The shoes were already made, so some of the potential damage was done long before I actually purchased them. And besides, how I can be an active crusader for a sustainable future if I can't walk? But this is all escapism; faulty logic my brain spins into fact so I don't feel so guilty about owning them.

Last week I clicked over to their website. Where 'Polyvinyl chloride' had been just weeks before, it now read 'Polypropelene inner frame.' (Polypropelene is a more benign form of plastic.) A quick check around the site found no information about the change. So I called them back, and a much more knowledgable receptionist filled me in: there had indeed been a change from PVC, several months ago, and they were just now updating their marketing materials.

So I feel a bit silly about all of this drama over a pair of shoes that turned out to be perfectly fine. In my search for the truth, however, I was able to evaluate my ecological priorities, research alternatives, and communicate my concerns to Dansko. So sometimes we have to give in to the less sustainable when no alternative exists; at least we don't have to do it quietly.



Jocelyn Tutak is living the American dream in Seattle, Wash.