As many parents will tell you, when you have a baby, it can be difficult to be sustainable every step of the way, especially since babies outgrow their clothing so quickly. 

Well, eco-friendly children’s shoe brand Woolybubs has come up with an ingenious solution to shrink the environmental impact of parenting and reduce the number of items sent to landfills: Newbie, the world’s first dissolvable baby shoes.

Newbie shoes, which have a tiny developmental (and literal) footprint, are made up of 100 percent biodegradable ingredients that dissolve only in boiling water. Their cute, soft-sole shoe is flexible and soft as silk for the baby’s comfort, but durable and can withstand normal baby wear and tear. Plus, parents need not worry about the shoe falling apart in the rain or when hand washed as it is designed to survive these regular activities. 

Once outgrown, the shoes can either be composted where they will break down naturally, or they can be placed in boiling water where they will dissolve into a safe, non-toxic liquid within 40 minutes. The resulting solution can be safely poured down the drain where it decomposes back to CO2 and water.

“The Newbie is our first step to empowering more parents with ways to leave a smaller footprint,” explains Megan Millikan, one of the founders of Woolybubs. “As parents of three, we’ve seen first-hand the waste that comes with having kids. Hand-me-downs are a great option, but eventually, they wear out and end up in landfills. The idea behind the Newbie was to create a product that will disappear once outgrown, leaving behind less harm to the planet.”