Brooks Experiment: I am composting my Green Silences?

You might be waiting awhile (20 years):

Brooks’ BioMoGo is the world’s first fully biodegradable midsole foam for footwear. Traditional Ethylene Vinyl Acetate™ [EVA] midsoles can last up to 1,000 years in a landfill. Once a pair of Brooks shoes with BioMoGo hits an active enclosed landfill, the BioMoGo midsole is converted by common soil microbes into useful humus and nutrients 50 times faster.

http://www.brooksrunning.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-BrooksRunning-Site/default/Technology-Content?cid=biomogo_faqs

Biomogo is the midsole, not the insole. THere's a bunch of Brooks stuff about Biomogo including supposed independent laboratory testing of its claims.

http://www.brooksrunning.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-BrooksRunning-Site/default/Technology-Content?cid=biomogo_faqs#g6

I didn't see anything about how quickly the insoles will degrade.

Also, I don't know if a compost heap would do it. They talk about "an active enclosed landfill" with the “triple convergence” of high microbial load, low oxygen, and adequate moisture.

Sockliner of the Green Silence is BioMogo as well.

http://www.brooksrunning.com/green-green-silence/green_silence,default,pg.html

Brooks says the Green Silence is "Eco-built for Speed." I can confirm that the shoe allows me to run quickly, but does the "eco-building" mean that if I die on a trail somewhere, the shoes will rot with me? I could certainly lace up with greater peace of mind if I know this to be true.

First, in response to the provocative research revealing the limited use of "BioMogo" material in the shoe: I confirmed on the website that the midsole is composed of BioMogo. Apparently only the midsole possesses this quality. However, under "Key Green Features," they also list the following:

Key Green Features:

BioMoGo, the world's first-ever biodegradable midsole for running shoes

75% of the shoe’s materials are post-consumer recycled

Biodegradable insole and collar foams

Laces, gillies, and reinforced webbing are 100% post-consumer recycled

Water-based adhesives are used throughout

All dyes and colorants are non-toxic

Packaging is 100% post-consumer recycled

Note item #3, claiming the insole is also biodegradable. I have you by the balls now, Brooks! Strike that - this experiment is an empirical, emotionally detached and unbiased enterprise.

AKM

p.s. apologies to all for the inappropriate question mark in the subject, my error.

Well good luck. Please keep us posted. maybe a weekly update?

So if you post weekly updates that means you're taking the shoes out to examine them. Would that interfere with the "enclosed landfill" condition with low oxygen?

Is there any way to speed up the process? I'm already bored waiting.

You should video the whole thing. in time lapse format. Perhaps you could bulid a glass enclosed compost receptacle like those things they use to show honeybees at work.

Give the video a name like "Soilent Green" or something like that.

Yes, 20 years and 50 times faster than conventional midsole materials so 20 years vs. 1,000.

Water-based adhesives? I am picturing these things disintegrating underfoot in the well-watered climate I run in (only a few miles from Brooks HQ)

Latex Cement is a "waterbased adhesive." The term is misleading. All this really means is that the glue isn't a solvent or synthetic glue.

I like my Green Silence. If they are 8 1/2 and low mileage, send them to me and they'll get better use than making compost.

Have you tried Saucony Kinvara? Similar to Green Silince in a shoe store trial, might work better for you.

Best of luck on your next shoes.

Maybe or Maybe Not wrote:

So if you post weekly updates that means you're taking the shoes out to examine them. Would that interfere with the "enclosed landfill" condition with low oxygen?

Yes I admit that is a weakness in my test. I aerate my compost regularly anyway, but I'll need to extract the insoles to monitor progress thereby eliminating the anaerobic environment that Brooks calls for. But I think exposure to some air should be allowed if they claim true biodegradability. Landfills get stirred up too, don't they? I ran through one once and there were tractors pushing shit everywhere. My shoes smelled really nasty for a long time after that. They were not GSs though.

Update: I was bored, like laughingostrich, so I went out and stirred up the compost. It's the first time since I buried the insoles that I really dug around for them, so this is the first update. I speared one with my pitchfork and it came up looking downright recognizable. I couldn't read the writing on top, but I can't remember if that was already worn off from running anyway. Condition will be recorded as "discolored and fully intact."

Pics?

AKMarmoset wrote:

I speared one with my pitchfork and it came up looking downright recognizable. I couldn't read the writing on top, but I can't remember if that was already worn off from running anyway. Condition will be recorded as "discolored and fully intact."

Holy crap, it's been a day. Brooks says it will take between 20 and 50 YEARS to break down (depending on which figures you use). And that's in a perfect, undisturbed landfill environment.

I really doubt you'd see any significant breakdown in a day's time, and even a year won't do much. I think your experiment will be disappointing.

Chop them up into little pieces and it will provide more surface area for the composting to occur.

It doesn't sound like you are really proving much since Brooks never claimed that their stuff will biodegrade if you put them in a compost pile and get them out to look at them all of the time.

I'll admit that burying stuff to see what happens does sound like fun. I used to do that when I was a kid.

Brooks states that BioMogo must be in an anerobic environment to decompose. That means without oxygen so your test is obviously flawed. You're kind of like the farmer who digs up his potatoes to see if they're growing.