Reduce, reuse, recycle is a perhaps hackneyed environmental mantra, but with the classic 3 Rs in mind we can do a lot to eliminate sources of waste in our everyday life.
This week, as we prepare to welcome in the new year in just a few short weeks, I encourage you to take the “out with the old, in with the new” mentality that often accompanies the new year and apply it to one specific facet of your life: Your old shoes!
In the consumerist, capitalism-driven, fast-changing world in which we live, it is all too easy to accumulate lots of stuff. Among this plethora of accumulation you’ll likely find a multitude of old, worn-out, outdated, or unwanted footwear.
According to a surprisingly riveting article, Insights from the Frontline of Footwear, the global shoe market has boomed in recent years thanks to strong demand from younger generations fueled by the cultural phenomenon of footwear as a luxury status symbol. Euromonitor, which conducts market research and statistics, estimated the US shoe market to be worth a staggering $76 billion in 2018.
Whether you purchase sneakers at staggering price tags annually, love to indulge in the latest styles, or simply wear your shoes until they are falling apart like I do, chances are you’ll eventually end up with shoes you’re ready to do away with.With those 3 Rs in mind, here’s what you can do with old or unwanted shoes as an alternative to throwing them away:
1. Donate old shoes to charity:
If your shoes are wearable and in good condition, donating them to a charity shop like Goodwill can help provide shoes to individuals in need while simultaneously keeping materials out of the landfill, where it can take a pair of sneakers, for example, up to 1,000 years to break down.
You can also donate through the national shoe recycling program Shoes 4 Souls or through Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe Program where they re-purpose old shoes to create courts, fields, tracks, playgrounds, and even new products.
2. Upcycle your shoes to give them a new lease on life:
Adding a new pair of laces, sewing on patches, and dying or decorating your old shoes can help you get more out of your shoes before you’re ultimately ready to part ways.
3. Recycle your old shoes:
This could be as simple as depositing your shoes at your local recycling center or textile recycling drop box. Certain thrift shops or clothing stores may also accept shoes, either to re-sell or to recycle alongside other non-reusable clothing/textile donations.
Additional resources and ideas on how to refurbish, recycle, and re-purpose your shoes can be found here with 12 Things to do with Your Old Shoes.
The inspiration for this week’s topic came about earlier in the year as I was packing up some things to move from Maine back to Vermont. I encountered a pair of intensely worn out sneakers and some water shoes that had been thoroughly destroyed after getting stuck in a mudflat. As I had no need or use for this now-dilapidated footwear, I fought against the temptation to simply throw them away, instead asking myself: what is the most environmentally friendly option for disposing of these?
Needless to say, the shoes traveled back with me and subsequently made their way to my town’s recycling center. I not only brought the aforementioned shoes, but scoured my house for shoes both to donate (those that were in good condition) and to recycle (those that, like the aforementioned nearly destroyed shoes, were no longer viable footwear).
The process of donating the usable shoes went off without a hitch. However, my town's recycling center did not have the means to recycle the worn out shoes, informing me that such shoes would simply be thrown away. Disappointed, I continued my search for a viable recycling option. Via Goodwill's website, I found that Goodwill accepts worn out shoes for recycling. I called my local Goodwill for more details and found out that any shoes in unusable condition that are donated are collected by a third party recycler and sent over seas. I was less than thrilled with the prospect of my worn out footwear making the journey over seas to be dumped and dealt with in someone else's backyard. However, the fact of the matter is that the majority of footwear is, in fact, manufactured over seas (often in inhumane conditions, as is the case with a lot of our clothing). It would make sense then, that old shoes were being sent to the source to be recycled and re-purposed.
This raises another interesting point in that, when it comes to footwear and fashion choices in general, it is more environmentally friendly to buy products produced and sourced locally and ethically. Check out The Good Trade's list of 14 Fair Trade Shoe Brands for Every Occasion and Vetta's 9 Ethical Shoe Brands You Need to Know for a good place to start learning more about ethically-sourced footwear.
I further looked into North Face's Clothes the Loop recycling program, which purports to accept shoes in any condition at numerous drop off locations to then pass on to their partnering organization, Shoes 4 Souls. However, Shoes 4 Souls very clearly only accepts shoes in gently used conditions, leaving me dubious as to the efficacy of recycling worn out shoes through this program. This left Nike's Reuse a Shoe Program as the most viable option for me. To take advantage of this program, you can drop off old shoes at a Nike or Converse store with a collection bin. You can also mail your shoes to Nike's recycling center in Belgium, but you incur the shipping expenses. As explained on Nike's website, they accept any brand of athletic shoe, but are unable to recycle sandals, dress shoes, boots, or shoes with metal such as cleats. Using their Find a Store Locator, I was dismayed to find that the nearest store was over 2 hours away. Similarly, a search for participating Converse Stores Near Me yielded no nearby results. However, if you live near any Nike or Converse stores, recycling your worn out athletic footwear at one of these locations is a great option. I would, however, call first to double check that the store participates in the Reuse a Shoe Program.
Asics, my running shoe of choice, also partners with recycling company I:CO to recycle worn out footwear into new products, such as the soles of new shoes. Again, there were no participating store locations near me, but if you live near a participating location, this a great option for you. The store even offers a coupon toward your next purchase to incentivize folks to utilize their recycling service.
In the midst of my research, I also came across numerous local shoe shops that had partnered with organizations like Rerun Shoes to redistribute gently used shoes of all kinds to those in need, so be sure to check out local, smaller-scale recycling venues in addition to the footwear giants of Nike, Asics, and the like.
After a deep dive into the numerous recycling options for my worn out shoes, I decided that the most viable option would be to donate my shoes to Goodwill, where they would eventually make their way (in a bulk shipment) over seas to be recycled into new footwear and other products. As explained on their webiste, at Goodwill such textiles are sold on the international market to provide funding for programs while ultimately diverting millions of pounds of waste from the landfill.
The process of donating my gently used shoes was simple, and although finding a place for my worn out shoes proved to be slightly more difficult, the processes of both donating and recycling shoes is undeniably worthwhile from an environmental standpoint. As cited on The Chic Ecologist, 300 million pairs of shoes end up in landfills every year! The shoes that I donated and recycled will not be a part of that statistic, and I hope that you will now feel empowered, enabled, and encouraged to keep all of your future unwanted shoes out of the landfill as well by means of donation and textile recycling. Reducing, reusing, and recycling our waste is a key step on our journey toward greener living, and I can think of no better way to take a step in the right direction than by responsibly disposing of our superfluous footwear.
Are you feeling inspired to round up and recycle / donate old shoes in your life? What are your thoughts on the at times absurdly wasteful and ever-influential juggernaut of the fashion industry? Do you have other tips for reusing, refurbishing, and re-purposing your footwear? As always, feel free to chime in in the comments section below.
~Sam
