The same people who make the Solio solar chargers have released a whole new line of bags, laptop sleeves, and gadget cases under the “Tread” brand. Each of the items is made from recycled inner tube tires from trucks.
Most of the smaller bags look fairly typical, but the “Transient Attache” and the “Sleeve” are really nice looking. The inherent folds of the inner tubes make the material look like animal leather.
Even though the material has been saved from the dump you won’t be getting second-hand prices: the Attache is $200, while the smaller cases are around $20-$30.
Pointlessly noisy Flash page [Tread.com]
Sweet – as a vegetarian this is something I’ve been wanting to see.
They’re made from the inner-tubes of South American truck tires, not bike tires. See Travis Cohn’s website at http://reptire.blogspot.com/ for a small taste of recycled bicycle tire creations.
Used Rubber USA did this first many years ago.
Back in my, er… goth/punk/lots-a-black days I made full leg gators, gauntlets and a massive, pinhead-esque buckle up vest from inner tubes of trucks and bicycles.
It’s an awesome material to own items in, but an absolute bitch to work with.
that said, you could make these yourself with some leatherwork needles / sewing machine for essentially nothing. And it is environmentally friendly, as long as you take care in disposing of your goods when you tire of them – because they most probably won’t suffer wear and tear.
Uh, bad tire pun there was totally unintended.
Yes, they did do this a long time ago. I think I was in one of their ads once, b/c one of my friends went to college with the couple who ran the company.
The Tread website is awesome, who did it?