How can I reuse or recycle … old shoes?
We’ve had an email from John K:
I wonder could you help me with an issue I have with disposing of old footwear. I know there are some programs that accept old footwear and the different parts are separated and some are recycled as astro turf, basketball court surfaces and the like. If you do not have access to such a program, what can you do with your old footwear? I live in an apartment so using them for outside activities like gardening can not provide the solution.
I asked this question on my blog last month but nobody left a comment, I’m hoping your readers can come up with some interesting solutions.
We have a similar problem - if they’re in good condition then we charity-shop or freecycle them, but you only need so many pairs of scruffy decorating/gardening shoes. So anyone got any suggestions?
Any details of the programmes John K mentions would be great too.
(Re: the photo. I received the email from John K first thing yesterday morning then, while walking to the shops at lunchtime, spotted that a pair of shoes had been thrown over a telephone wire near my house. When I went back to take the picture mid-afternoon, another pair had joined it. On one hand, a waste of perfectly good shoes; on the other hand, a very conveniently timed photo opportunity for me…)
Depending on the shape, you can screw them to the wall (sole to the wall, toes to the ground) in your garage/cellar and store tools in there.
Never tried it though, just thought of it.
If you’re a golfer, how about using the toe ends of trainers for golf club protectors?
I wonder if birds would nest in them if you nailed them to a tree? I guess it depends on how bad the owners feet smelled.
The idea of strolling through the park and noticing old trainers nailed up high in trees makes me chuckle.
Haha, I like the nailing them to a tree idea, I guess it would get out of hand pretty quickly though.
Not too sure about the tools idea. I kinda like it but I’d have to see it in action to decide whether it was useful or not. Seeing that I don’t have a garage or cellar I can’t give it a shot unfortunately.
As for golfing, can you image the looks you’d get from the golfing elite as you stroll around the course! Haha, genius.
Love the photo Louisa very opportunistic. The reason kids do this is to short the wires (well it used work like that in the 80s anyway) and see the huge sparks that were generated.
There are recycling bins for shoes at my local tip: the good quality ones are reused by charities in the third world and the scruffy ones are stripped down and the individual parts recycled so my post-gardening shoes go in there.
I,, of course, strip them for parts I can used first - old shoes laces always come in handy and buckles too.
I used an old pair of flip flops to make a pair of slippers once, well the soles of them at least. I doubt it would work very well for anything with a heavy or rigid sole though.
SaraR
i have used a coup,e of old walking boots as plant pots for my geraniums!
i have used a couple of old walking boots as plant pots for my geraniums!
Go to Nike.com and search Nike Reuse a Shoe Program which takes old sneakers. Not sure about shoes, though. But they do accept old sneakers and recycle them to build such things as playgrounds, etc.
blue peter have teamed up with clark’s to collect old shoes, but they need to be in fairly good condition. i think most clark’s are taking part and have bins in their shops so you can deposit old shoes. all money raised goes to help poor children in malawi.
you didn’t spell couple right
in the first one
I like to give those types of things directly to the homeless. In San Francisco, that is not an issue.
The only time I can never find one is when I have take out.
In America, a pair of shoes slung over wires is a signal for where drugs are being sold. I just stumbled upon your website when I was googling a picture of shoes for a project~
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When you go on a trip to a developing country, e.g. somewhere in Africa, take along old shoes to give away. If you can’t pluck up the nerve to actually hand out old shoes, you can quite literally put the pair on the pavement and walk away. Somebody will rescue them from their homeless plight before you know it. My family in South Africa puts old shoes on the pavement outside their back gate. Within a half an hour, they are usually gone.
You can donate them to Liverpool Biennial for a forthcoming art installation in 2008, we will be collecting pairs of old shoes from now until early 2008.
I suggest taking them to your local charity shop. You can buy high quality recycled shoes from many retailers online.
IN art we brought in old shoes nd made an animal out of them