Since Civic Duty’s founding in 2009, its sales have totaled about $8 million, he said.

One of his competitors has taken a similar path, focusing its marketing on both environmental and cool factors. The three co-founders of Unstitched Utilities, in East Brunswick, N.J., met while working at Fila, the sports clothing and footwear company.

One co-founder, Kevin Crowley, had worked in the hazmat suit industry. Several years ago, the group began experimenting with Tyvek in shoe designs, and they later dabbled in using recycled magazines (cut into strips and sewn together) as a shoe material. Now they sell sports shoes made from Tyvek as well as canvas.

“Tyvek is a difficult material to work with,” says Jack Steinweis, another co-founder. “You’ve got to really know what you’re doing, and we had the right information.”

Mr. Steinweis and his partners initially wanted to make the shoes in the United States, but couldn’t find a factory willing to work with Tyvek or able to do it affordably.

Unstitched Utilities began making its Tyvek sneakers in China but has since relocated manufacturing to Vietnam. The shoes, in high- and low-top versions, sell for $50 to $135 a pair on its website and in about 30 shoe stores in the United States.

A third competitor in the Tyvek-sneaker market, Unbelievable Testing Laboratory, was started in China two years ago by Token Hu, who was working at the design firm Frog Design. He began experimenting with Tyvek sneakers when his wife routinely couldn’t find shoes she liked that fit her very small feet.

Mr. Hu eventually left his job and started Unbelievable Testing Laboratory. It is now based in both Shanghai and Las Vegas and is marketing its products to 23- to 35-year-old men who “work in the design, technology, I.T. and engineering spaces,” says Joseph Constanty, a co-founder, adding that the company does not actively market an environmental aspect.