Vans sneakers
Where are they made?
Vans sneakers are made in manufacturing plants. With conditions much alike to those of a sweatshop. The company has two main sweatshops. One is in China, and the other is in Vietnam.
What are they made of?
The vans sneakers are composed of three main materials. Cotton, rubber, and plastic. The rubber and plastic are used to make the sole of the shoe and to help insulate some other parts of it, such as the heel. The cotton is turned into cloth and made to fit the rest of the foot.
What the raw materials look like:
Rubber
Before it anything is done to it and it is made easier to build with.
Cotton
The cotton plant in which cotton comes from.
Crude Oil
Oil is harvested from the ground in Russia and turnedinto plastic.
My map that I created
Map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1u_SIz96LTB_MNXrd1boIGcy3zew
This map explains the process in which it is needed to manufacture vans sneakers. The lines on the map represent different things. The blue lines represent the transportation of cotton. The yellow lines represent the transportation of rubber. The orange lines represent the transportation of plastic. Finally, the black lines represent the finished project moving around the U.S..
Globalization Effects:
There are four main categories of globalization; Culture, Economy, Technology, and environment.
Culture:
The first aspect of globalization, is not really effected that much. The culture is only affected by making traditional Vietnamese and Chinese jobs such as farming, less popular. Given that farming takes a lot of physical effort and shoe making does not, or at least it takes a lot more.
Economic:
The economic aspect definitely is covered more than the culture. The sweatshops create hundreds upon thousands of jobs for these people who would otherwise not have a job. Sweatshops may be thought of as horrible and they need to be shut down by us Americans, but to them, the sweatshops can be one of the best things that has ever happened to them. it gives them a source of income. This is good for the whole economy of Vietnam or China.
Technology:
This area of Globalization is kind of affected. They use workers and sweatshops to build these shoes and not technology.
Environmental:
This has a huge impact on the environment in many places. First off, the oil drilled in Russia gets turned into plastic. Plastic is one of the least biodegradable substances in the world. It can take hundreds of years for plastic to fully degrade. Also, rubber is quite the same way. It takes a very long time to degrade. Using these resources to make the shoes, especially both and not just one or the other, is making all the trash dumps in the world even more filled with trash then before.
Change and solution:
If I could fix one aspect of this, it would be environmental. My solution is instead of using both rubber and plastic, I think they should focus on using just rubber. Rubber is more biodegradable. All the plastic is covering up the world in dumps. Rubber will degrade much faster and cause this to be much less of a problem.
Why I chose this product and how does it affect me?
I chose this project because i am very interested in vans shoes and it affects me for the same reason. I have been wearing vans shoes my whole life. They have always been my go to choice for shoes and I was very interested in how they were constructed and from what they were constructed.