The initiative was conceived in collaboration with Explicit Wear, the Iamsterdam marketing organisation, and the sustainable company, Gumdrop, with the aim of recovering the litter that not only causes degradation in the city – more than 1,360 thousand kilos of discarded chewing gum wind up on Amsterdam’s streets and sidewalks each year – but which also ends up costing the city millions of euros to clean up.

Available only for preorder now on the explicitwear.com website, and starting in June in stores, Gumshoe sneakers are offered in both a bubble-gum pink and a black/red colourway and feature durable rubber outsoles fashioned from Gum-Tec, a recyclable compound produced by Gumdrop, which is 20 percent made from gum.  A map of Amsterdam is moulded into the bottom of the soles to remind people of the littering problem. Even better, the sneakers actually smell like bubble-gum without however…. the stickiness!