The world is awash in critical problems: war, inflation, poverty and widespread hunger, to name four of the worst. But there’s another serious threat to our health and well-being lurking just beyond the horizon—jelly shoes. According to the fashion experts at Vogue, this increasingly popular footwear, made of sustainable PVC plastic and widely available to consumers at affordable prices, apparently has a “darker side.” 

Without providing a single piece of compelling evidence, Vogue asserts that PVC is linked to cancer, reproductive harm and environmental pollution. The solution, reporter Amy Francombe declares, is “better educating consumers on the impact of what’s on their feet.” 

We agree that a little education is in order, but it’s Vogue’s editorial staff that needs a quick lesson in basic toxicology and journalistic ethics, because Francombe‘s story is short on both. The simple fact is that jelly shoes, and PVC more generally, do not pose a risk to public health or the environment.

A non-toxic material

While Vogue cites an anti-plastic activist group as a source for its claim that certain chemicals in PVC may cause cancer, we prefer to rely on the US Government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), a global authority on the subject. NCI’s summary is plain as day: “PVC is not a known or suspected carcinogen.” 

As reporters are wont to do, Francombe alleges the chemical used to manufacture PVC, vinyl chloride (VC), is carcinogenic without mentioning a critical fact: there is almost no vinyl chloride in finished PVC products, jelly shoes included. During the manufacturing process, steam is used to strip residual vinyl chloride out of PVC; the chemical is found “typically at non-detect levels,” according to a 2005 study. There is also no evidence that the public is exposed to unsafe levels of VC in the environment, per the CDC:

“Vinyl chloride is not normally found in urban, suburban, or rural air in amounts that are detectable…” 

The same can be said of the chemicals used to enhance PVC for a wide variety of applications, for example plasticizers known as “phthalates” that are sometimes used to make PVC more flexible. These substances are tightly regulated by health officials to protect the public from harm, and they have a 50-year track record of safe use in consumer products.

 

Mixing up cause and effect

Some speculative studies have attempted to link phthalate exposure to the harms described by Vogue. However, veteran chemist and science educator Dr. Joe Schwarcz provides the crucial context we need to make sense of this research:

“Let’s start by pointing out the obvious. An association does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. A classic example is the correlation of ice cream sales with drownings. Ice cream sales increase in the summer as do drownings, but people do not drown because they have eaten ice cream.”

In other words, people who are exposed to phthalates (everybody) may experience health effects caused by other substances or behaviors that we know are harmful. A large body of research shows, for example, that excessive weight gain can cause hormonal damage that affects reproductive health in men and women.  Vogue was so eager to associate PVC with “hormonal  disruption” that it overlooked a far more likely cause of the problem. 

Recycling myths revisited

Vogue also made the banal claim found in nearly all anti-plastic stories: “PVC is typically not recycled or recyclable.” Utterly false. In fact, more than 1 billion pounds of the material are recycled annually in North America at more than 100 vinyl recyclers. Since 2014, post-consumer PVC recycling has increased by more than 40 percent. 

Moreover, because the material is so durable, PVC products often last for many years, which keeps large amounts of plastic out of landfills. Vogue got remarkably close to admitting this when  Francombe unwittingly observed that “PVC is a durable, lightweight water-resistant material, making it well suited for this style of sandal.”

Conclusion

The great irony here is that consumers are actually making a smart choice by wearing PVC-based jelly shoes. Not only are they durable (read: “sustainable”), they come in a range of styles and at price points that suit a wide variety of consumers. Indeed, these sandals are a textbook example of how plastic makes our lives better. We like the way one team of experts summed up this point:

“Wonderfully weird and certainly playful in its aesthetic, the jelly sandal is also ultraconvenient when it comes to the effortlessness required when dealing with sun, surf, and sand. It’s no wonder they make for the perfect vacation shoe for all ages. Shop all favorites, below.”

You know who wrote that? The fashion gurus at Vogue. Perhaps PVC isn’t so troubling after all.