Nike Reuse-a-Shoe Program is Great for Everyone

What do you do when your shoes are tool old, worn out, no longer fit, and just are not good enough to wear anymore? If you said throw them out then read this to find out how your old sneakers could be kept out of landfills and help children have places to play.

The Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program began in 1993. Nike was searching for an answer to the question “What do you do with worn out shoes?” Nike began collecting both post-consumer, non-metal-containing athletic shoes of any brand, and Nike shoes that are returned due to a material or workmanship flaw. The shoes are taken apart and separated by material – upper fabric, midsole foam, and outsole rubber – then the separated materials are ground up to be reused.

The ground material is called Nike Grind material. Each of the three types of Nike Grind have found second lives as various sporting surfaces. The upper fabric can be used as padding underneath the hardwood floors of basketball courts. The midsole foam can be used in synthetic basketball courts, tennis courts, and in playground surfacing. And the outsole rubber can be reused as golf products, weight room flooring, and running tracks. Nike donates these materials to communities around the world that otherwise would not have access to quality sport’s surfaces. The donated sports surfaces, called NikeGO Places, benefit children through promoting physical activity and benefit the environment by diverting thousands of pairs of shoes from landfills.

Nike accepts any brand of athletic shoes to recycle. The only requirements are no shoes containing metal, no cleats, and no dress shoes. They have drop boxes in twenty-two states in the US as well as a nation wide recycling center that you can mail your shoes to.

Nike Reuse-A-Shoe is found in more than just the US. In 2003 Nike launched the program in Australia. Partnered with ARMtour the first court was donated to the community of Mutijulu in Central Australia and has been growing since. The program then launched in the United Kingdom in 2004, and with through a partnership with The Salvation Army clothes/shoe bank has been growing rapidly. In Japan the program was launched in 2006 though the first glimpse of the program came in 2004 with the donation of Jordan Court at Mitake Park, the court is named after basketball legend Michael Jordan who took part in the donation of the court. Nike hopes to expand the Reuse-A-Shoe program and establish collection facilities across Europe.

Donating your old shoes to the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program is a great way to help the environment and provide children with high quality sports surfaces. This is a win-win situation for everyone!