Colin Lin reuses discarded newspapers to create eco-friendly shoes and tote bags

Designer Colin Lin, 50, chanced upon a brilliant idea of creating eco-friendly footwear and tote bags using recycled newspaper. The Taiwanese designer recycles Chinese language newspapers and weaves them into a lattice pattern. In order to endow her ballet-flats with weather protection and to make them waterproof and durable, she dips them in plastic. Just three and a half pages of newsprint suffice for a pair of shoes that are later handcrafted by the cottage industry artists in China.

I only contribute very little to recycling all the newspapers dumped everyday around the world. But other footwear and bag manufacturers may want to copy my idea and so contribute their own share to dealing with the problem.

Having been in business for 26 years, Lin has sold more than 4,000 pairs of shoes to customers hailing from the United States and Europe. Adorned with the telltale Chinese characters and the colorful photos and advertisements, her shoes and bags cost around $100-150 and $260 respectively.