I’m hard on shoes and shoes can be hard on me right back, but I never thought I’d see the day that I’d actually wear out a pair of sneakers. I used to be able to go through ten pairs of heels in the time it took my sneakers to get scuffed … this might have had something to do with the fact that I only wore sneakers once a year on a camping trip.

Well last year, I joined a running club and I invested in a good pair of running shoes. When my running coach warned that a runner should replace her running shoes every six months, I scoffed. The rate I was running it would take sixty years to wear these babies out! Well, I found that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other for long enough, and power up with enough goo and power bars, you can run a half marathon. I also found that my shoes started to lose their spring. Funny, I didn’t feel like a “runner” when I crossed the finishing line of the half-marathon. I didn’t feel like a “runner” when I accepted my medal, or when I paraded around in my runner’s blanket. It was only when I needed to replace my sneakers that I felt like a “runner.” I had run far and long and hard enough to wear out a good pair of sneakers in six months!

Last thing I wanted to do was toss them in the garbage. I considered framing them, but then heard about Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program. They take any-brand sneakers and rip them apart to recycle all the rubber into soft-surface playground and sports field material. Nike then works with its partners to bring surface donations to underserved communities within their Let Me Play program, which leverages the power of sport to change young peoples’ lives. All good.

You can bring your worn out sneakers (with pride) into any Niketown store location (see Nikebiz.com for locations) or send them by mail to: Nike Recycling Center, c/o Reuse-a-Shoe, 26755 SW 95th Ave., Wilsonville, OR 97070.