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Adidas Superstar Mens Blue
« on: Apr 5th, 2017, 9:27pm » |
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To Tom Hartge, the fax that inched out of the machine in Nike's Inc.'s (NKE ) Beaverton (Ore.) headquarters back in 1992 came like a kick to the gut. As the product manager for the company's running-shoe division, Hartge had devoted much of his career to perfecting Nike Air, a Nike Roshe Run Mujer Floral lightweight plastic air Adidas Superstar Mens Blue pocket attached to the heel that had kept the company's sneakers at the front of the pack for more than a decade. Now a German environmental magazine was attacking companies that used a super-potent greenhouse gas called sulfur hexafluoride, Nike Air Max Thea Donna or SF6. Makers of refrigerators and air conditioners bore the brunt, but the magazine pointed out that Nike's air pockets contained not just air but SF6, too. The accusation stung all the more, coming right as other critics had begun to slam Nike for using sweatshop labor in its contract factories in Asia and elsewhere.
It took Nike nearly 14 years to overcome the SF6 problem. This summer, after quietly devoting tens of millions of dollars and countless frustrating days to research that went nowhere, Nike finally perfected a way to create SF6-free air pockets. The technology Nike Roshe Run Dames now cushions Nike Air Huarache Damesfully half the 200 million shoes it sells each year. Although Hartge and researchers worked closely over the years with several green groups, they chose not to brag about their environmental victory to consumers or the public. Instead, Nike sees the effort as part of a broader strategy to embrace social responsibility without compromising profits or product performance.
The new technology that Nike researchers developed, which uses nitrogen instead of SF6, has even paid off commercially. How? It allowed Nike to create the Air Max 360, the first sneaker to cushion the entire sole with a bed of air. Launched last January, the $160 shoe has become a hit, and Nike recently rolled out a basketball version. "We wanted to do the right thing for the environment and for the athlete, but we wondered if the two could ever be harmonious,Nike Air Max 2016 Dames Roze " says Hartge, 50, now Nike's creative director for advanced research.
Hartge and his colleagues might have been forgiven for dismissing the original complaint as a joke: How could a mere sneaker contribute to global warming? But it didn't take them long to recognize the reality of the accusation. Because SF6 breaks up slowly in the atmosphere, it has an outsize impact when the shoes are finally destroyed and the gas is released from millions of little air pockets. At the peak of SF6 production in 1997, Nike Air footwear carried a greenhouse effect equivalent to an astonishing 7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide -- about as much as the tailpipes of 1 million cars.
Still, there was no way Nike could give up on air cushioning, an innovation it had first introduced as far back as 1978. Those precious few ounces of gas, it Nike Air Max 2017 Dames turned out, were much better than foam or other heel fillers at absorbing the impact of a foot slamming against the ground. Air -- or gas, in this case -- also keeps its spring longer. What's more, it's lighter than a solid material, crucial to runners worried about heavy shoes slowing them down.
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