Kat (00:01)
Hi Tiffany. How's it going? Better every minute. Yeah, we're recording this the Tuesday after daylight saving time. So it's like the worst jet lag. And it's like two days, like the Monday morning, you know, Sunday you're like, and then Monday you wake up and you're like, okay, this is fine. This is fine. And then Tuesday you're just like, where am I? That's like, it hits you.

Tiffany (00:02)
Hi, Kat. That's fine. How are you?

Ugh.

It is.

Yeah, that is exactly

how it's been. I was like, am I getting sick? What's happening?

Kat (00:31)
Yes.

And then like, I get a little manic in the spring. ⁓ Just energy levels are weird. Like the lights are turning and it's like,

Tiffany (00:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you don't know what to do with yourself.

Kat (00:43)
Yeah, just I can't sleep. I'm doing cleaning things or I don't know. But yeah. So happy daylight saving time.

Tiffany (00:48)
Interesting, okay.

Right? Ugh.

Kat (00:53)
Well, anyway, so here's my intro for this week, okay? In the classic 1995 movie Clueless, Cher says to a friend, you see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.

Tiffany (00:56)
Okay.

Kat (01:09)
She was referring to picking a boyfriend or hooking up with men in general, which is why that line's really funny. But this line has stuck with me most of my life. I think about it all the time. Shoes are super personal. They can make or break an outfit or your comfort, depending on what you prioritize, possibly both, possibly neither. There's a silly stereotype that women just mindlessly buy shoes, which I think maybe has died down over the past 30 years a little bit, but because men have started

Tiffany (01:26)
Yes.

Kat (01:40)
buying more shoes too. There's like been more, more priority on men to like look good. And also like sneaker heads and collectibles and things. I think that's always been around, but it's kind of as we hit like maximalist consumerism, think men are not immune to the shoe craze. But I looked up some stats just about women's shoes. So per the site run repeat, the average American woman owns about 17 pairs of shoes.

Tiffany (01:41)
Right.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

No.

17. That

seems actually low.

Kat (02:08)
It gets skewed a little because like, I think five out of a hundred or something will own more than a hundred pairs of shoes. And that's in America, yeah. ⁓ About half of our shoe purchases are done because we want to buy them rather than because we need new shoes. It's that go shopping, you know, to feel better kind of thing, which I get. I get it. Hi, kitty. Cat butt.

Tiffany (02:17)
Okay, gotcha.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hi.

Yep.

Kat (02:35)
the other statistic is that even though we buy so many shoes, most women will only regularly wear three pairs. It doesn't. And I think about that a lot. It's like, have your go-tos, you know, and you'll wear them. so women are generally marketed shoes more often than men, according to Run Repeat as well. get told we need, I mean, we do, a man could have a pair of brown loafers and wear it with like,

Tiffany (02:43)
interesting. That does not shock me.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (03:05)
his suit and his khakis and his, a woman needs a brown loafer, a leopard print loafer, a blue loafer, a chunky soul loafer, know, a heels for this thing. If it's a cocktail, you know, you need fancier shoes for this. It's just how women's clothing is, how our fashion is. I know. Well, I don't leave the house. So, ⁓ but that's just kind of anecdotally in my experience. I think women are

Tiffany (03:22)
Yeah, theoretically I don't have all this, but yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Kat (03:35)
At the same time, I also think anecdotally, and I didn't do any research on this, I think we're also marketed green living more than men are. Yeah. OK. Good to know. But yeah, it's just something like influencer content on eco-friendliness. It's like women care about fluffy animals and women care about trees and, know, partially because I think we're kind of assigned the role of caretaker, societally, but also

Tiffany (03:42)
totally. Actually, that fits in for next week.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (04:04)
guilt plays a big role. we, you can sell us on guilt. So.

Tiffany (04:05)
Yeah.

Yes.

Kat (04:12)
Anyway, that's my thought going into this, but shoes are apparently notoriously difficult to recycle. So according to Fashion for Good, most shoes contain more than 40 components made of separate materials. So like the sole, the insole, the upper, the lining, the, and you have to take all of those apart separately to recycle a shoe, right? There's just not a really great piece of machinery that can do that at scale.

Tiffany (04:19)
⁓

Okay.

Kat (04:42)
Right. So 95 % of used footwear goes straight to the landfill or is incinerated. Yeah. I mean, hoping that that's shoes that you've worn the crap out of and have holes in them and it's finally time to give them up. I know Ridwell will take shoes once in a while, but they're very, very hard to recycle. So what's a girl to do?

Tiffany (04:57)
true.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, really.

Kat (05:11)
Enter Rothy's, one of the myriad shoe brands marketing to us, claiming to take on the footwear aspect of fast fashion while also being environmentally sustainable. But what environmental crises are they really addressing and are they doing a good job? Welcome to Greening Up My Act.

Tiffany (05:50)
Alright.

Kat (05:50)
All right, so ⁓ my sources this week, Run Repeat was that first one. Fashion for Good was another one. The Rothies website and their sustainability page. I also looked up some stuff on the US Green Business Certification, Inc. website and SCS Global. And then I listed Good on You in the comments. I didn't really refer to them. I just had them kind of up. And then Trustpilot. ⁓ Also had some LinkedIn and Reddit.

Tiffany (06:13)
Yeah. Okay.

Kat (06:18)
stuff that I tangentially looked at, none of it was necessarily linkable or germane. So, I mean, I'll talk about that later, but I didn't link to it. So first off, who are we Tiffany?

Tiffany (06:24)
Right.

Well, we are two marketing professionals who have both been through layoffs up until two weeks ago. I was a content manager. Not anymore. That's fine. ⁓ we understand the marketing side of stuff. But then also, we are normal people trying to make sense of the green.

Kat (06:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (07:00)
living industry because it really is an industry. Yeah, so we're trying to figure out like what the hell is worth it and spoiler most of the time it's not worth

Kat (07:02)
It is 100%.

If they're making money off the sustainability, it's probably not doing that much. Other than alleviating the guilt, maybe, that they give you. Things you didn't even know to worry about, but... yeah, there's things.

Tiffany (07:20)
Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, sometimes it is like.

Like if you need new clothes, then I feel like. ⁓

Kat (07:31)
Yeah,

I'd rather buy from, yeah, an ethical brand. Yeah, Hope for Flowers or like a small scale designer, right? Yeah, that does feel better than like traipsing off to Target or Macy's or Nordstrom or Sex with Avenue. you know.

Tiffany (07:34)
Like, for flowers is a good option. Yes.

Yeah. However,

that is out of reach for many of us. So yeah, it's just kind of amazing how it's like.

Kat (07:52)
It's true. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Tiffany (08:00)
People talk, even with wardrobes, people talk about how they want to sort of green up their wardrobe or make, only have natural fabrics or like make their wardrobe more sustainable. And then it's like, yeah, and money and stuff. And it's like, don't, maybe you don't need to buy all new shit. So that's just us in a nutshell. We're gonna try to help. And we fall prey to it too. So don't, we're not here like preaching.

Kat (08:09)
Or make a capsule. Yeah, have a capsule wardrobe. But that takes so much work and effort. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Well, yeah, and think that's

the thing is we get, I think most of the brands that we're talking about this season I have fallen for at some point, just kind of, it felt better to buy from them. Yeah.

Tiffany (08:36)
Yeah, because it's like, yeah.

I was planning to buy from Quince. They've gotten a of shit from us this season. They're not even the worst, probably, but they're all over the place, so think that's why. But yeah, it's hard. It's hard stuff. So we're all in it together. Yeah, but we're trying to make it easier.

Kat (08:43)
Yeah, they have. We're like, Chis the one.

Yeah.

It is hard. is. Just one more thing you got to think about as a woman, of course. Well, so yeah.

Well, I'm talking about Rothy's tonight. So we're talking about fashion this season and Rothy's is the shoe company that we're talking about. We had a couple options that we were talking about, but Rothy's is the one I have recently purchased from. And I think they have kind of an interesting sustainability thing going on. So.

Tiffany (09:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kat (09:24)
Rothy's is a shoe company. ⁓ They make their shoes and now bags and other items from recycled plastic, specifically recycled plastic bottles. The company was founded in 2012 in San Francisco by two dudes. Surprise! An investment banker and a creative and gallerist. So bros.

Tiffany (09:30)
⁓ Right.

Yes, I knew that.

Aha!

Kat (09:48)
Bros. It's okay. Yeah. And I didn't get into their motives. So what they, their stated goal when they founded the company was to make a stylish and comfortable woman's shoe from single use plastic to reduce the excess that occurs during the traditional shoe making process. And, know, like fix that whole plastic bottle problem. So it sounds, it sounds like, I don't know if they were like, Hey, what sells?

Tiffany (09:50)
So it was a startup.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (10:18)
Women's shoes. Okay, so how can we make our women's shoes different? I know women feel guilty about plastic bottles by the ocean specifically. or if they both were like, you know what, we both really care about like the plastic crisis. Is there something we can do and make a buck? Cause he's an investment banker, right? I don't know. I don't know what their motives were, but that was their express stated goal. ⁓

Tiffany (10:21)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

Kat (10:43)
They use the term closing the loop, which is a term people in recycling circles like to use about what to do with all this waste we generate, right? How do you really bring it back full circle? Because as we know, when we talk about plastic recycling, it's kind of like, not legit, not really useful or sustainable. so.

Tiffany (10:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. To recap,

we had a two-parter on plastic recycling and you can only recycle plastic three, like, I think it was like three to seven times max. So yeah, if at all.

Kat (11:13)
Yeah, if you can recycle it to begin with, right? So

yeah. So yeah, it's not, anyway, ⁓ we'll get into that. But they claim to have been inspired by companies like Patagonia, because yay, sustainability, I guess. And I think Patagonia is a legit brand.

I don't think they sell men's shoes.

Tiffany (11:37)
Rothy's.

Kat (11:37)
Yeah. I know they have children's now, but I didn't see men's shoes. So I don't know. ⁓ they didn't really start making, they, they had like a slow start. They, they were founded in 2012, but they didn't start really making their recycled 3d knit shoes until 2016. ⁓ so they market these sustainable washable footwear primarily to women. And again, like I said, they branched out into handbags, accessories, like wallets, purses, purse straps, and then girls shoes. ⁓

Tiffany (11:40)
⁓ interesting, OK.

Okay.

⁓

only girls? Why not boys? They're the same. What the hell? What? I gotta look at this, sorry. That makes me so mad.

Kat (12:07)
And they have, yeah, little girl shoes.

I don't know. I don't know. I haven't looked at it. Yeah, look them up. Rothy's. Rothy's.com.

And they also have dozens of styles now. Because when they started out, it was just like a flat.

Tiffany (12:24)
Right,

yeah, I got that one. I think I got like the flat when it first came out.

Kat (12:27)
Yeah.

So this 3D knitting process, according to them is the Rothy's factory, which is of course in Guangzhou, because why not? ⁓ they hot wash a bunch of water bottles, sterilize them, turn them into chips, melt the chips down into pellets. And then those pellets are stretched into fibers and given air treatment until they entwine and become a knit thread.

Tiffany (12:38)
Okay.

interesting.

Kat (12:54)
And then apparently the uppers are knit, like in the 3D process. And then they said they're sewn, they sew the sole on by hand. And the soles include recycled foam, rubber, they have a whole list of the materials, but I'll get into that. But, ⁓ they have brick and mortar stores throughout the U S I've, they might be international, but I'm, know they're like at every upscale mall in the U S and of course they have a very thorough and attractive online store.

Tiffany (13:03)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (13:23)
And nowadays, apparently their leadership is all ladies, including the CEO who was the former co-founder and president of old Navy, not a brand known for they're kind of at the helm of fast fashion in the late nineties, you know, like really super cheap pieces that you could buy. You remember like somebody, I saw some posts like you remember in the nineties when we all just bought each other old Navy fleece for Christmas and that was good. Yeah. Those are the days, but they kind of.

Tiffany (13:36)
Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

Yes, totally. Yeah,

it's true.

Kat (13:52)
Old Navy kind of pioneered plastic fast fashion, you know?

Tiffany (13:55)
Yeah,

they totally did. god, it was cheap. It still is. It's still around. I will say they do have men's shoes and they do have boys shoes. Yeah.

Kat (13:58)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, they do. Okay.

It I remember though getting rot. Yeah. I think that's kind of a new thing. ⁓ I remember getting rot these ads in my social media feeds at some point in the late 2010s and people girls were talking about it. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Which is like it's like dresses with pockets. Like are you fucking kidding? Washable shoes?

Tiffany (14:06)
less so, but yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. yeah, that was like, was like very exciting to have washable shoes. That was new. Yes.

Kat (14:26)
Duh. I remember a friend came and stayed with me in Albuquerque once and she had like canvas toms or something and she just threw them in the wash with her clothes when she did a little laundry at my house. And I was like, never thought of that. But yeah, washable shoes, duh. So yeah, so by 2018 they had sold over 1 million pairs of shoes. And in 2021,

Tiffany (14:38)
Right? Isn't that funny? Yeah, it's crazy.

Okay.

Kat (14:52)
A majority stake of ownership in the company was sold to the owner of Havaianas, which is a Brazilian flip flop brand, more or less. So I don't know if that's affected. That may have been why they've branched out in so many styles. Cause I don't know if you've ever shopped for Havaianas. Like I had a friend who studied abroad in Brazil in the early 2000s when we were in college. And when I went to Brazil in like 2012, she was like, can you just buy me a pair of Havaianas? can't get them here. And there were like, now there's.

Tiffany (15:00)
yeah, huh.

Kat (15:22)
literally have Ayanna stores in every mall and you can buy like 30 different kinds of flip-flop, you know? It's... No, she couldn't get them in the US. I couldn't f- But they used to just have just plastic flip-flops. That's all they made. And now there's like, they have a thousand different styles, which is kind of like Rothy's.

Tiffany (15:28)
She couldn't get them in Brazil. Oh, I see.

Interesting.

No, I know,

I'm looking at the site and I'm like, holy moly, I remembered the one. Mm-hmm. Everything, everything you can imagine. ⁓

Kat (15:45)
Mm The flat, right? And now they have dozens of, yeah. Yeah.

So our next question is what sustainability claims do they make? I'm just take this straight from their website. OK. They use recycled plastic to make most of their shoes the core of their shoes and bags, including the new revolutionary re velvet and their signature shoes. And they claim to have saved over 225 million recycled water bottles.

Tiffany (15:55)
Yes, I'm curious. Okay.

Kat (16:13)
since they started.

They use natural hemp and responsibly sourced merino wool for their other textiles, according to the sustainability site. Their factory is LEED, L-E-E-D, gold and true zero waste certified. They use a knit to shape technique, that's their 3D, to create their bags and shoes that creates less than 1 % upper material waste compared to 25 to 50 % waste in typical shoe or bag manufacturing.

Tiffany (16:30)
Okay.

Okay.

Kat (16:44)
So that's

something you kind of talked about with the leather that doesn't get used. Yeah. Last week. So they use recycled materials for their shoe and shipping boxes. So it's cardboard. their shoe boxes are strong enough to serve as the shipping box. So they don't have to put another box around the shoe box. So they save a bunch of cardboard in that process. They're saying they saved 3.3 million pounds of cardboard to date due to that.

Tiffany (16:47)
Yeah.

Okay, that's good.

Damn. Which is

also like economically smart. Like I don't understand. Yeah. I just don't understand. Yeah.

Kat (17:14)
Yeah, why not? You don't need a thousand boxes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

their shoes and bags are machine washable and durable so you can keep them around for a long time. Presumably meaning you'll buy fewer shoes, but I don't, I don't know. and they do offer a recycling program through their stores and they partner with Poshmark so you can resell your shoes or bags.

Tiffany (17:38)
Okay, that's interesting.

Kat (17:40)
Yeah, their FAQ page also has some stuff on it. So they say their signature thread is SCS Recycled Content Certified, which verifies that it comes from 100 % recycled sources diverted from the waste stream. They also go on to explain that the plastic they use in their shoes is collected within 30 miles of coastlines and marine environments and is Ocean Cycle Certified, which verifies the chain of custody around the plastic, meaning that

they know that this plastic was going to end up in the ocean.

Tiffany (18:11)
⁓ there was another brand that did that same thing and I can't remember who it was.

Kat (18:15)
Which to me sounds kind of like that means you don't have to pay for the plastic, I guess.

Tiffany (18:20)
I don't know. ⁓ It may have been Last Object now. It was some other brand, but it was kind cool because they partnered with an NGO that did the collection. yeah. How interesting.

Kat (18:29)
See, that's cool. That's something that's missing from here for me. And they

also have ethical labor practices and adhere to waste and wastewater standards through the Ocean Cycle Certified certification. So that's a lot of third party certification stuff going on. They also say they use a wide variety of recycled and transformed materials, such as algae-based strobel boards. no. As well as algae-based strobel boards and outsoils made from recycled and plant-based

Tiffany (18:40)
Okay.

Yeah.

Kat (18:59)
TPU, which is thermoplastic polyurethane.

Tiffany (19:02)
Do you have any idea what a strobeboard is? Okay, maybe it's like the under the insoles.

Kat (19:04)
Nope, part of a shoe.

Yeah. So yes, again, 40 parts of the shoe, right? 40 components to each shoe. So I have here that it's break time because it's been 20 minutes. So let's take a little, a wee break and then we'll come back and talk about how, if these sustainability claims hold up.

Tiffany (19:12)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay, sounds good.

Kat (19:42)
OK, welcome back. So our next question is, do these sustainability claims hold up? OK, it was really hard to find any criticism of Rothy's sustainability claims online. Yes, really hard. ⁓ Either they have really nailed it down and they're spot on, or they have a really good PR team. I'm going to guess the latter there. I couldn't even really find any true discussions of their sustainability all the way through the second page of Google Results.

Tiffany (19:52)
Really? Huh.

What?

Kat (20:09)
Like if you say, if you put in Google search and maybe it's my algorithm, I don't know. I tried it on different, you know, like different Google personas. But if you Google is Rothy's sustainable, like is Rothy's really sustainable? What comes up is the Rothy's sustainability page, a bunch of pages from Rothy's and then a couple of reviews from, you know, green influencers being like, I love Rothy's, but they never questioned the claims. They just kind of parrot them back from what I could find. Again, I didn't.

Tiffany (20:15)
huh.

Hmm.

Right, right, right, right, right.

Kat (20:38)
to the Library of Congress and do really deep research here. I did find one LinkedIn video with absolutely no likes or comments that was from like 2024 from a guy who's clearly European talking about greenwashing. And he was claiming that Rothy's had been uncovered. Like they found that their what they claimed was 100 % recycled plastic. used 40 % virgin plastic in their production processes in 2023.

Tiffany (20:41)
Right.

Mmm.

Kat (21:08)
And this forced them into being more transparent about their processes or fix them. So the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission wouldn't find them. But I could not find a new story.

Tiffany (21:19)
Yeah, or like a source.

Kat (21:21)
No, I don't know where he got it from. He seemed very authoritative on it. And he's like, now they're SCS certified, which is what they claim. I couldn't find any. It's like everything you find about them on their sustainability is all praise, just sheer praise.

Tiffany (21:29)
interesting.

You know what's so interesting? I don't remember what I was researching. Well, it was for this next episode, but the same thing happened to me. no, it wasn't actually. It wasn't. The same thing happened to me with Starbucks. Starbucks recently changed, and I know Starbucks is evil. Yes, I get it. But they recently changed their star program. Yeah, so like you can get stars if you buy shit from them and then you get free stuff. But it's like,

Kat (21:50)
I'm out.

certification or some OSTAR program. Okay.

Tiffany (22:04)
over the years gotten worse and worse and worse, just got worse again. I looked up, I like Googled Starbucks, Star program change or something. And probably 50 % of the articles were Starbucks written. And I think they do that on purpose.

Kat (22:20)
Yep. They

do. They flood it. There's, you know, whole internet companies devoted to washing your bad name out of search results and they have the money to do it. They have the brand. And that's the thing is that like, you can't trust Google search to be, you know, nonbiased because whoever has the money pays for the links, right?

Tiffany (22:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like it's gotten worse too since AI came around.

Kat (22:46)
100 %?

Yeah. I think so too. Yeah.

Tiffany (22:50)
It's like

I already knew SEO kind of ruined the internet because you can't I mean read it sure but

Kat (22:54)
Yeah. Well, now SEO's dead. Yeah,

SEO's dead now because of AI search. Yeah, GEO. Or AEO, like pick a name, you guys. ⁓ DuckDuckGo is pretty good.

Tiffany (23:00)
Right, now it's GEO.

Mm-hmm.

Right, I've actually never tried them. I should. Because yeah, it's just something to watch out for. It's like we have to be so on top of it because as you're reading, what they want is as you're reading through the page, you're like, this is good, this is good, this is good. It sort of infiltrates your brain. And then you're not seeing much criticism. And then when it does pop up, yeah. And I'm like, they literally have the stars that you can get.

Kat (23:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

but then you're like, yep, just.

And you're not questioning the source. Yeah.

Tiffany (23:38)
And you have to refill, you have to refill like an extra or like a reusable card with $30 or more to get more start. I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy. And I sometimes think about when you said that that is, that they're holding onto your money, that is your money. Yeah. It's like, you're right.

Kat (23:51)
system are out of control. Yeah.

Yeah, when you buy a gift card, yeah. They get to invest it. You don't,

you're not making interest on that Starbucks gift card. Yeah. Yeah, it's a trick.

Tiffany (24:07)
Right. Yeah, no,

you're totally right.

Kat (24:13)
which I will do for a small business at Christmas time. I'm fine buying gift certificates for a small business, but not like Starbucks. They don't need my money.

Tiffany (24:13)
All right.

Yeah.

Right.

Oh my god, it's so messed up. All right, anyway, yeah, so I'm not surprised your search results were screwed.

Kat (24:24)
So yeah.

Yeah. So I do want to talk about some of the certifications they tout. So the first are TRUE and LEED certifications. So these are both certifications administered by the Green Business Certification Inc, which is apparently a legit company. ⁓ TRUE stands for Total Resource Use and Efficiency. Cute. It helps facilities determine or define, pursue, and achieve zero waste goals while becoming more resource efficient.

Tiffany (24:40)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Kat (24:54)
The core requirement to be true certified is that the company must divert at least 90 % of waste from landfills or incineration or the environment. And it does include third party verification. It's reportedly very rigorous. So that matters.

⁓ LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it's the world's most widely used third-party verified rating system for designing, constructing, and operating sustainable, healthy, and high-efficiency green buildings. That's another certification that is worth something, I think. ⁓ So these are pretty legit, especially due to their third-party verification processes and rigorous standards.

Tiffany (25:29)
Yeah.

Do know if this is for their factories? Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (25:37)
The factory in Guangzhou, yeah. So that's not nothing.

I've worked in lead buildings before and it was like, the air conditioning system has to be efficient in this way. There's all these design elements that are actually pretty cool and legit. If you got to have a building, I guess. ⁓ The next question is, what is SCS recycled content certification?

Tiffany (25:55)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (26:03)
So SES Global Services is another third party verification company focused on providing proof that products are made from the materials they claim they are, especially when it comes to recycling. are apparently the world's foremost authority on recycled content certification. But that's per their own website, of course. The recycled content certification is applicable to any company or any item that contains at least 5 % recycled material.

Tiffany (26:11)
Okay.

I've seen that all over the place, that little symbol.

Okay.

Yeah.

Kat (26:34)
So if you are saying you use 5 % recycled material, they will come in and say, yeah, your claims are correct. Again, they don't have, what I could tell, it's not like it has to be so much recycled content versus, you know, but they're just verifying that Rothies is saying they're using 100 % recycled content in their signature knit than they are because SCS Global says so. So if they were saying they used 40 %

Tiffany (26:59)
Okay.

Kat (27:02)
And they got the SES Global Certification. Yes, that would be true too. But they are saying they're 100 % NIT certified. ⁓

Tiffany (27:08)
Okay.

Kat (27:11)
Shoe recycling program has done relatively well. guess they've recycled over 20,000 pairs of shoes since I started, which is like a drop in the bucket compared to selling a million, but.

Tiffany (27:19)
20,000? Yeah.

That doesn't seem like very many, better than zero? I wonder why. Oh, OK, I see.

Kat (27:25)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't know how long they've been doing it. It's kind of a pilot program right now.

Yeah, and also, you know, if you're claiming that your shoes are meant to be kept forever.

Tiffany (27:37)
Yeah, hopefully. I don't know.

Kat (27:40)
Yeah, but okay. And what about some other sustainability concerns that I thought of while reading this? Okay. My biggest issue with Rothy's making washable shoes out of recycled plastic is microplastics. There is nothing on the internet I can find about that.

Tiffany (27:52)
Mm. Right.

Interesting.

Kat (28:00)
nothing about

do like if I looked it up AI would be like yeah they're made from plastic so they're gonna if you wash them they will bleed off my but there's no research on it or like discussion of how yeah maybe you're saving the plastic from the ocean initially but then if you're washing this stuff doesn't this water that's full of microplastics and back in the waterways so

Tiffany (28:22)
Yeah.

I mean, I've seen stuff like that, you know, throughout our research, just on not shoes in particular, but on like, plastic, fabric made of plastic. But that's, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Kat (28:30)
Yeah.

Yeah. So it's just a concern like to me. Yeah, maybe

we don't have plastic bottles ending up in the stomachs of whales, but now instead we have little plastic, tiny, tiny, plastic, microscopic plastic particles ending up in all of us, you know? So I don't know.

Tiffany (28:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I remember that with the ⁓ washable rugs too, because they're made of plastic. And even back then I was like, you know, briefly mentions it somewhere, but people aren't really talking about it much. So it's interesting.

Kat (28:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

I know. And it's like, okay. Well, as they branch out into making more than just one type of shoe, there's like a scope creep also, right? So they're claiming again, to use responsibly source Merino wool. I didn't see any of the numbers are proof to back that up. Also, you know, so the one voice I found on the internet saying there's anything wrong with Rothie sustainability was PETA, right? According to PETA, there's no way to get wool from an animal ethically. So they're the

Tiffany (29:25)
Okay.

Okay.

That's what I've,

yeah.

Kat (29:39)
Yeah,

and factory farming is obviously a problem. there's also their claim of using natural hemp, but they have absolutely no proof as to where it comes from that I could see, you know? Right. Yeah, and like, hemp is cute, but it's like using bamboo, right? If your processes are detrimental, it doesn't matter what, it could be organic cotton, it's gonna be bad for the environment.

Tiffany (29:50)
Mm, and natural as we know is just a fluff word.

Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kat (30:07)
So the next question is, what about their durability? Longevity is the anti-fast fashion, right? it's an interesting question. ⁓ A lot of people on the internet say the shoes are very durable. But then it comes up on some reviews, like you have to follow their washing instructions, exactly. The company gets a ton of bad reviews on Trustpilot due to bad customer service, surprise.

Tiffany (30:10)
Mmm.

Yeah.

⁓

Kat (30:34)
And the shoe styles have changed. The other thing is like shoe styles change a lot from season to season. Like you found with the leather handbags we were looking at last week, I'm not sure their styles are timeless enough for their durability to matter. Like it was one thing when like every brand had, you know, there were teaks, it was just all ballet flats in like 2012, you know? And they still have those, but it's like, aren't like ballet flats

Tiffany (30:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (31:02)
ballet flats came back into style like two seasons ago and now it's like nobody's wearing that anymore we're wearing stupid clogs so they have a lot I mean they have to dress that by selling a lot of different styles right so yep right can't wear socks with those either so not no that looking like a crazy person so our next question that we ask is is this something a normal person could do or afford

Tiffany (31:11)
Yes.

Yeah, and like Mary Jane's, how long are those gonna be in style?

Yeah.

Kat (31:30)
their website is overwhelming. They have flats, clogs, Mary Janes, loafers, mules, sneakers, sandals, heels, wedges, and boots. And then they have a ton of handbags, wallets, clutches, small accessories. The list goes on and on. Their website is... ⁓ I know, well...

Tiffany (31:39)
my god.

Sometimes I feel like stay in your lane, but.

What do I know?

Kat (31:50)
They are a little pricey. I will say that. Not like, how much do you think their cheapest pair of shoes? Okay. Their cheapest pair of shoes is currently $99. That's yeah, it's not on sale. Yeah. I think when they came out, yeah. that's their daily flat, which is their original shoe. And then their most expensive pairs are their loafers coming in at like 189 on their most popular page. I'm not sure. The boots are probably more than that.

Tiffany (31:52)
Mm.

I was thinking like 60.

⁓ that's more than I thought. I'm probably thinking of like 2015 praises. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (32:20)
This isn't totally outlandish though. I feel like when you buy a good pair of shoes, that's, that's, they're gonna, if they're gonna last you more than a month, that's probably about as expensive as those shoes are gonna be. So that's pretty on par. I feel like.

Tiffany (32:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you say you found anything about their ⁓ longevity?

Kat (32:39)
Not officially.

Tiffany (32:41)
Okay, I'm just curious if people say they last a while. You have some, right?

Kat (32:44)
Yeah, but that's, yeah, I get into that here. So, so a Google search told me the most, women's shoes are going to run between 35 and 150 bucks. So that seems pretty in line. The two issues that come up repeatedly in their reviews are sizing and sweat factor. So I bought a pair of Rothy's square toed Mary Jane's from the store here in Austin last summer.

Tiffany (32:47)
Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (33:08)
And the sales guy told me to size up half a size because the plastic knit would shrink as I wore them. I have not found this to be the case.

Tiffany (33:13)
Hmm

interesting maybe as you wash them or something

Kat (33:18)
I

wonder, we're supposed to wash them in cold water and not dry them. So, you know, I've only worn them a few times because I really don't leave the house, you know, and like they're red Mary Janes and they they're nice. I mean, they're cute. They have a look. They're a look, you know, but I've never washed them. Yeah. So I don't know. they are made of plastic. So your feet are going to sweat.

Tiffany (33:21)
⁓ okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (33:41)
They are not super breathable, even though they're knit. And they're, I mean, they're comfy, but you have to keep that in mind if you plan to make them your everyday shoes and wear them without socks, because who wears socks with Mary Jane's? You weirdos, you know, ⁓ they're sweaty. They're sweaty shoes.

Tiffany (33:56)
Yeah, got the, like I said, got those the original flats or whatever. And I don't because my big problem was I have wide feet, like very wide feet. They were so painful to wear. They didn't offer, yeah. They were actually like comfortable as far as like the bottom. Yeah, but it was just they were so thin and they didn't have wide.

Kat (34:04)
Do you still have them?

Yeah.

Yeah, I can see that. They have like no support. Yeah. I'm wondering if they're loafers.

Just wearing. Yeah.

Tiffany (34:24)
options. I mean, it's hard to find wide shoes, so I can't even really fault them for that, but maybe they do now. ⁓ Interesting. Yeah, I was- they were hor- they just hurt my feet so bad, so I couldn't wear them.

Kat (34:26)
Yeah.

I think they had a discussion about them, but yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I don't know. I need some more arch support, I think, if I'm going to want... They're kind of like wearing socks out in public is kind of what it feels like. The flats. Yeah, Converse are... Yeah.

Tiffany (34:42)
Yeah, they definitely don't have that. Yeah. Or like converse, but worse or better.

A little better, actually a little softer than converse, yeah.

Kat (34:52)
Yeah, maybe, but there's not much in there. I mean, there's not much to them. So

I couldn't find anything on the durability. I looked at Reddit posts. looked at, know, everybody's just like, yeah, they're durable. And I'm like, how long have you had yours? You know, and like, so, and TrustPilot, the people are complaining on TrustPilot are really like dire circumstances. You know, it's like, I tried to get a return and they gave me the run around and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, but.

Tiffany (35:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Kat (35:20)
What about the shoes? So.

Tiffany (35:21)
Mm-hmm. That's really surprising. Well, maybe it's not that surprising. I feel like it's hard to find an honest review.

Kat (35:28)
I

well that and also like, again, I think they kind of fell prey to they got, they made a lot of money, they got bought out by a bigger shoe company. And so now their customer service is crap. They're cutting corners wherever they can, you know, and they're making a thousand new styles. So they can claim the sustainability shit, but they're still just pumping shoes into the environment. okay. Does the earth friendly message need to come back to earth? And I said, yeah, I think so.

Tiffany (35:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Kat (35:56)
This is like a grain of salt issue or like the robbing Peter to pay Paul issue that we talk about with sustainability. okay, Rob, these flagship shoes are taking water bottles away from ending up in the ocean and using them to make a product that makes sense. They appear to be reducing waste in their production processes and their shipping processes don't use plastic and create less cardboard waste.

Tiffany (36:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (36:18)
And the durability concept is a good idea. Like if we all just bought three pairs of Rothy's to wear for the rest of our lives, maybe we could keep those 95 % of shoes out of the landfill incinerator, you know? And I couldn't find like just raw numbers of how many, how many, I didn't, maybe I didn't phrase the question right, but like how many pounds of shoes are thrown away every year? I didn't get that. the fact that they're just spreading their line to include so many different styles concerns me.

Tiffany (36:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, mm-hmm.

Kat (36:44)
Why do they need to branch out into Hemp and Merino Wool also? And why do they have to have so many options? Also, why do they have style ambassadors listed on their webpage to convince you these are the shoes the it girls are wearing? There's an ambassador outreach program and it's like.

Tiffany (36:48)
Right.

Yeah.

Ugh.

That doesn't surprise me. I they're popping back up on my podcast that I listen to and I'm like, Rothy's? Like I haven't heard about Rothy's in forever. Okay, interesting. Yeah.

Kat (37:05)
Yeah, me too. I've seen them a lot. Yeah, I think it's because they got bought out again and they're kind of,

so they're not, I don't feel like they're pulling the wool over our eyes about their sustainability claims. They're not greenwashing, but they're also not answering the real question, right? Because again, like,

Tiffany (37:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (37:34)
They're not answering the whole question, I would say. They're like, yeah, we solved this one problem. We're taking water bottles out of the ocean, basically, from the mouths of whales and putting it on your feet. But then if you're washing it, doesn't the microplastic end up? yeah, in all of our mouths.

Tiffany (37:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm

Yeah, back in the whale's mouth.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (37:56)
There's still a company that's here to make money. That's what it comes down to at end of the day. And making money is the basis of our problems when it comes to fashion and eco-friendliness. That's always going to be the issue. Consumerism drives eco-terror. So, ⁓ so our TLDR, our granola rating that we do every week, we rate the products or services we're talking about on a scale of one to five granolas with five being the best. And the scale is one is a soggy, two is a mushy, three is a chewy.

Tiffany (38:05)
Yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (38:26)
Four is a crunchy and five is a break your tooth off. And I guess you're probably not gonna be surprised that I gave Rothies a three. It's like in the middle. It's a good idea. It can make you feel better about buying a new pair of shoes when you need them, I guess. They do have third party certification and Lord knows we need to get those water bottles out of the ocean. But like part of me was just like, why are they not advocating to outlaw single use plastic? Like stop the problem at its source, which is like quit.

Tiffany (38:33)
Okay, that's about what I expected.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Right.

Kat (38:56)
If those bottles weren't ending up within 30 miles of the coastline, where would Rothy's get their materials, you know?

Tiffany (39:01)
Yeah, and unfortunately, it's not really in their interest to stop it, which is a little scary.

Kat (39:04)
Right.

Yeah. And what about all the other plastic that's not near the coastline? Or other waste in general, you know? So anyway, my conclusion was just walk it off.

Tiffany (39:09)
Right.

Yeah.

Kat (39:18)
But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't like, ached out by them kind of like I was by Quince, but there's still icky aspects. I mean, they are doing what they say they're doing and they have proof and they're not claiming to do anything else. You know, they're just, here's the, here's our sustainability claims and here's what they do. We've solved this problem. We're not saving the whole world through, you know, planting trees or yes, yes. Yeah. This is just.

Tiffany (39:19)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's true.

Right, right. Literally some of these companies say save the world, buy this and save the world. It's like, Jesus.

Kat (39:49)
wear some sweaty shoes that are, I mean, they're cute and they are, people love them. They're fashionable, you know, they have, they, they fit a certain look dynamic that works, but yeah, it's just kinda like another shoe company. I don't know.

Tiffany (39:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yep. Okay. That's interesting.

Kat (40:06)
So that's it.

So next week, I heard we're doing Stitchy. What is Stitchy? ⁓ what are we doing next week? Ooh.

Tiffany (40:12)
Okay, I changed it to something better because

yeah, originally I was gonna do, Stitchy was, it's like this little device that you can sort of stitch. Yeah, but the reviews were so bad that I was like, I'm not, this is a piece of plastic junk. I'm not gonna buy this. So instead I looked up a ⁓ garment repair company.

Kat (40:25)
⁓ I've seen it. Okay. Yeah.

It's like not even worth it.

Good, okay.

Tiffany (40:41)
Yes, and they're very exciting. I'm really excited about it. Is that our last one of the season or you have one more?

Kat (40:44)
Okay.

We have one more next week.

Tiffany (40:49)
What are you doing

after that?

Kat (40:52)
to ask me these preparation questions.

Tiffany (40:53)
Sorry.

Sorry. Because I couldn't remember. just, it would be cool to end on this one, but if not, that's okay too. Nah.

Kat (40:57)
⁓

We, I mean, we could, who says we have to do 12 episodes every season?

I love that we're writers, so we use word docs instead of Excel spreadsheets. We're like allergic to Excel spreadsheets, even though it would probably be better for organizing our stuff. Fjallraven.

Tiffany (41:09)
I know. I know.

Yeah, probably.

⁓ yeah, I know we should end on them. They're pretty cool. Okay, sweet. So yeah, that's gonna be next week. if you haven't done the downloading, haven't put on automatic downloads yet for the show, please do because that helps us a lot.

Kat (41:21)
Yeah. So.

Tiffany (41:41)
And my freaking Apple podcast app doesn't automatically download even though it's set to. So make sure it's actually downloading for our sakes. Yeah, I should. Yeah.

Kat (41:49)
Yeah. Call tech support. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening

and thanks Tiffany for coming on this journey with me. See you next week.

Tiffany (41:55)
Thank you.

Bye!