Green Your Closet… Recycle Your Shoes

September 9, 2009

Nippy doesn’t quite describe the temp down here in the south right now, but there IS  a hint of autumn in our mornings. Aside from raking and cooking soup, autumn is a time for me to take stock of my wardrobe. Can I actually salvage any clothes from last year? Am I too fat…or  too skinny, to get into those blue jeans?  I took a preliminary peek in my closet. and here’s what I saw.

SHOES.
Old ones. New ones. Tight ones. Loose ones. Out of fashion ones.

Shoes are littered and piled up deep in the abyss of my closet, lurking there in the dark. How can I possibly bring in more shoes without finding a way to responsibly dispose of the surplus I’ve already collected. Not that I’m Imelda Marcos, but of all the shoes in my closet I probably only wear 3 pair. I am ankle deep in shoe-guilt.

Do you have this problem, too? Well, these shameful feelings are really unnecessary. There are things we can do to assauge the guilt. For instance…

DONATE.
It’s easy to donate shoes to the obvious, local charities. Heck, they’ll even come and get them. But, who’s going to call them to come pick up 6 pairs of shoes? I’d feel like I needed to give them gas money, and some cookies, too! So, that means I have to wait until I have at least ONE bag of clothes to donate, to make it worth their effort. This is one reason those shoes are still in the closet.

There are some places, however, where you could take just one or two pairs of worn out foot fashion. Nike Reuse-a-shoe accepts all brands of used and abused athletic shoes, which they then recycle and turn into tennis courts, playground surfaces and even new shoes! Just make sure they’re fairly mud-free and don’t have any metal in them. (No dressy shoes or cleats). There’s a local drop off site near me, and probably near you, too.

Don’t think we need more tennis courts? There’s also Soles4Shoes. This non-profit organization began during the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina and encourages you to donate “gently worn” footwear to people in need instead of throwing them in the trash. According to their site, Americans discarded more than 300 million pairs of shoes last year. Shoes contain toxic glue that seep into our water supply and atmosphere. Yuck! Visit their site and find a drop off near you. They ‘ll take your old shoes and refurbish and spit and shine them, until they are ready for a new pair of feet.

RESELL THEM.
If you love them so big, and think they’re so fab, (even though they haven’t been worn in 3 years), why not resell them? Possible choices are CraigsList, eBay or taking them to a local consignment shop. Or, if you don’t care about getting money for them, put them on Freecycle. Freecycle is a site where you can list something to give away, simply to keep it out of the landfill. It’s the “one man’s trash” concept. Hopefully someone else will find your old shoes to be just the treasure they were looking for!

SWAP WITH A FRIEND.
Sometimes I just get tired of stuff, don’t you? If you have a friend or relative that wears the same size, just trade out! My sister and I passed one pair of Frye boots back and forth a zillion times over a period of about 20 years! (Yes, I think we still have them, but I’m not sure whose closet they’re in).

GET SHOE CRAFTY AND REPURPOSE
Handy with a paintbrush? Take a cue from these hand-painted shoes from CLP Studio. Dress up those old sneakers or clogs by wearing art on your feet! I’ve also seen people use boots and shoes for planters by drilling holes in the soles and spraying with a water-repellent varnish. If you really have a shoe fetish, I suppose there’s always the bookends idea… hmmm.

Filed under: recycle,reuse,Uncategorized

Tags: green living, recycle