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Loading...New Ways to Recycle Old Shoes
- Annie, selected from Plenty magazine
- September 18, 2008
- 9:00 am
- 24 comments
While we intend to wear flip flops until the snow hits, we’ll probably start alternating them with boots and shoes fairly soon. Fall sales are a good time to shop if you need new footgear, but there’s no excuse for tossing even the scruffiest old shoes in the nearest garbage bin–and then to overtaxed landfills. A sad and unnecessary end!
Happily, there are a number of easy ways to give footwear a new life. If your sports soles have lost their bounce, Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program will take back and recycle any brand of athletic shoe. Just run your shoes over to the nearest Nike store or mail them to Nike’s recycling center in Oregon. Or check out this site for more places to send sneakers out to pasture.
Kids outgrow shoes faster than hermit crabs cast off shells, and often these are lightly worn. And sometimes even older people discover that, ahem, they need a larger size. Donate lightly worn shoes of all sizes to families in need via giveshoes.org.
If your Crocs have curdled, drop them in the nearest SolesUnited location where they’ll be recycled into new Crocs that are donated to people in need.
If you have a closet full of the fancy stuff like heels, you’ve got options. Lightly used dress shoes can be donated to the Cinderella Project, a non-profit that provides gowns and accessories for prom night to girls in need.
Or, see if any of your friends and relations who wear your size is interested in doing a shoe swap. It’s a great way to get rid of one pair of shoes while cheaply obtaining another.
If those options don’t work, check out Earth 911 for the nearest drop off donation center near you.
Plenty is an environmental media company dedicated to exploring and giving voice to the green revolution that will define the 21st Century. Click here to subscribe to Plenty.
Read more: Beauty, Fashion, recycling, shoes
By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Plenty magazine
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
First one is especially cute :) Thanks for sharing!
Wish they were out my door... I live with chronic pain and yoga hurts more. Not worth it.
Thanks
makes one think living longer but not in good health is not something one would enjoy eh?
Thank you
24 comments
+ add your ownty
Cool! I liked your idea! I didn't knew about recycling of shoes, I only donate my shoes. This sound's great. Shoes for kids
Cool
Good tips!
Good ideas!
recycling some points for the animals ...
I've resoled my mephisto 3 times, my last pair I had 8 years. And they don't look like trainers.
Is there a way to recycle used/ruined shoes that are not the athletic kinds?
thanks
interesting info
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