New Balance Unveils Earth Friendly Shoes in Time for Earth Day

BROOKFIELD, Wis – New Balance recently unveiled a new line of earth-friendly shoes called New Sky which are now available at the New Balance stores in Greenfield and Brookfield.
According to Megan Sajdak, Marketing Director for New Balance of Greater Milwaukee, “The New Sky shoe line is really impressive. It is based on three well-known principles: reduce, reuse and recycle. We hope it something many consumers, who are trying to decrease their footprint on the earth, will appreciate and embrace.”
The stylish casual athletic shoes are actually created out of recycled post-consumer PET plastic water bottles which are chopped up into flakes. The flakes are then washed, melted and extruded into fibers that are processed into a non-woven material used to create the upper components of the shoes. The result is a shoe, including the laces, stitching and tongue label, which is comprised of 95 percent recycled PET. An average pair of New Sky shoes is made out of 8 recycled PET water bottles and consists of 73 percent less upper material than traditional New Balance athletic shoes.
A small amount of water based glue is used to assemble the sole to the upper. And, in keeping with the “green” theme of this shoe line, customers who purchase these shoes are encouraged to donate them to less fortunate people when they are done using them.
“New Balance is really excited about this new shoe line, and we really hope that consumers will like it because finding new uses for recycled plastic is important,” says Sajdak. “By recycling one ton of plastic consumers save 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space and we put the plastic back to use versus having it sit in a landfill for hundreds of years. This is a really good thing.”
The New Balance Greenfield store is located at 7411 W Layton Avenue, next to Stan’s Fit For Your Feet, and is open weekdays from 9:30 am to 9 pm, Saturdays from 9:30 am-5:30 pm and Sundays from 11 am-5 pm. The New Balance Brookfield store is located at 17155 W Bluemound Road, Suite A, next to Stan’s Fit For Your Feet, and is open weekdays from 9:30 am to 9 pm, Saturdays from 9:30 am-5:30 pm and Sundays from 11 am-5 pm. For more information call the Greenfield store at 414-431-6300, the Brookfield store at 262-432-1400 or visit http://www.nbmke.com/.