Sports/Health/Fitness
Apr 15 2011

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HOW TO RECYCLE OLD SNEAKERS

What to do with your old running shoes?

You can easily spare your sneakers from a landfill burial. Recycled Runners is the web’s first national shoe recycling and donation directory. You can also buy a new pair of sneakers on the site’s retail partner, Zappos. Do you have a shoe donation program you want to get the word out on? The site has an easy way to add it to the directory. And best of all, each month Recycled Runners donates 50% of the proceeds of purchases made through Zappos to a featured Charity of the Month. Founder Dorian Quispe, an experienced marathoner, started the site after running the Inca Trail Marathon in Peru. As Quispe puts it, “After training and dedicating yourself to be a marathon runner, finding a green place for your shoes should be the easy part. Running is hard, giving is easy.”

Then there’s the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program.  Yes, we know Nike can be an eco-devil with the sweatshops and mass production and more. Nonetheless, they’re making an effort to do some green good. If you’ve been on a playground lately, you’ve probably noticed the bouncy, rubbery material that is spread underneath the swing sets and monkey bars. There’s a good chance it is Nike Grind, and that you are bouncing around on someone’s old sneakers. How does this happen? Donate your old shoes and they will be “sorted and processed into three types of raw material: rubber from the outsole, foam from the midsole and fabric fibers from the upper.” This becomes Nike Grind, and this becomes part of a basketball court, track, field or playground.

 

2 Comments
2 Comments
  1. Really Cool and Really Informative

  2. Thanks for the tips

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