Would you wear algae on your feet? One local company is hoping you do for the sake of the environment.
Bloom Holdings is the creator of Bloom FOAM, a wearable foam converted from toxic algae blooms in fresh water. The Solana Beach-based company said Thursday their products are a solution to algae that takes over water in California and kills marine life.
“All of our local reservoirs, at one time or another, have algae blooms that have been serious problems for them," said Rob Falken, managing director of Bloom Holdings. "We make algae functional. For most shoes we average about twenty to twenty-five percent algae content.”
Falken added they are currently the only company in the world doing this.
Through a partnership with Vivo Barefoot, they are making shoes that look similar to crocs and cleaning the water at the same time.
The process vacuums pond scum out of a lake, dries it, pulverizes it into a powder, which is turned into plastic and then foam. This foam can be made into products for surf boards, furniture or anything else that requires flexible foam.
The process returns dozens of gallons of clean water to lakes and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for each pair of shoes created.
Falken added it is possible to do this process with ocean water as well, which they plan to do in the future.
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"The goal is to be cleaning water ways on a global scale," said Falken.
