Recycling Shoes
As a long distance runner I go through a lot of athletic shoes. It is recommended to replace your running shoes about every 300 to 500 miles or three to six months. When going through a 12 week training cycle I clear this recommendation easily which is why I usually stretch this time frame out a bit longer. Still, this leads me to purchase at least two pairs of shoes every year and is why I currently have a sack full of used pairs in the basement waiting to go somewhere besides the landfill. In the past though, I used to turn running shoes into yard shoes, then when they really had no life left they went into the garbage. Unfortunately shoes last at least 30 years in a landfill (some reports say forever), having spent maybe a year on someone’s foot. What’s more alarming is that American’s throw away 300 million pairs every year. To avoid further contributing to this needless waste I decided to find out other options available for my running shoes beyond the landfill.
Gently Used Shoes
If your shoes are not terribly worn out you can try donating them to the Goodwill or Salvation Army. You can also donate to organizations like Zappos for Good. Unfortunately their Native Shoes Remix Project only accepts old Native Shoes for their recycling initiative. They also recycle denim jeans, so keep that in mind when your pair of old jeans gets one too many holes. If you have new or gently-worn shoes of any style you can donate them to Souls4Soles. There are drop-off locations all across the U.S. or through Zappos for Good you can ship up to 50 lbs. DSW, another Souls4Soles partner, gives you VIP Reward points when you donate up to 20 pairs.
Beyond a Second Life Shoes
For the shoes you have worn into the ground there’s a program that has been around since the 1990s available. The Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program converts old sneakers into Nike Grind using the material from the recycled shoes and manufacturing scraps. Their website boasts 32 million pairs and 120 million pounds of manufacturing scrap repurposed into useful material in the 26 years of the program. They only accept athletic shoes, but you can drop them at any of their Nike stores. Unfortunately I attempted to do this a few weeks ago and despite the store being open for business, they were not accepting shoes for the program.
A second option is dropping your worn out shoes at participating Columbia and Asics stores. Theses stores work with I:CO or I:Collect, a global waste handler operating an industrial-scale shoe recycling facility. Their model closes the loop of recycling by collecting worn shoes, sorting between those that can be sold as second-hand goods and those that need to be recycled, then using the rubber granules from the shoes to produce a new pair. With Asics, you can donate any clean and dry shoes and clothing too. Unfortunately their participating store list is quite limited with almost no locations in the Midwest.
Terracycle is a major recycling company that takes a variety of unwanted items including shoes, but charges to you for the service. An 11”x11’x20” box is $109 and wont fit very many shoes. To be honest I’m curious who actually uses their services when options are available locally that either don’t charge or give you a store incentive to do so.
Repairable Shoes
Instead of getting rid of your old shoes you could give them a second life by visiting a cobbler. The name evokes images of an old world town filled with thatched roof buildings, but is actually a common profession today. Instead of searching for a cobbler you will have more luck with the term shoe repair shop. Depending on the shop they can do full resoles on sneakers which is often the first part of the shoe to wear out.
Your Next Pair
Beyond my running shoes I used to buy the cheapest shoes that would fit my needs. This typically meant sale items from Target that last about 1-2 years. I was really impressed with a pair of boots I purchased three years ago that are just now letting in water at the soles. But to be truly sustainable, I should be purchasing a more expensive shoe that is meant to last more than a few years and can be repaired. I have had a pair of Sperry’s for four years that are still holding up well. Brands like Red Wing, known for their durable shoes, have a resoleable design and operate a repair shop to keep their shoes out of the landfill.
Some companies are working to make sustainable shoes that are not necessarily meant to be repaired and reused, but are intentionally recyclable. While a difficult undertaking because of the limited recycling potential of plastic, major retailers like Adidas are attempting to make a closed loop shoe, while some like Saucony are working on biodegradable products. Nike is halfway there with shoes made of 50% recycled materials like their Flyleather product, but also have their Reuse a Shoe program as mentioned above.
Next time you are in the market for new shoes consider the source and consider the future of the shoes you are replacing. There isn’t a perfectly sustainable option to shoe shopping yet. We don’t have shoes that last a lifetime, nor do we have a pair that can easily be recycled. But there are options for reducing the amount of waste generated as a result of the limited life of many of our shoes. No shoe needs to end up in a landfill.
