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Gather all your old sports shoes, and send them to a better place. Literally.
There are about 26 million people in Australia, and we all must really love our shoes, because every year we bring in 110 million of them. Unfortunately, only 1% of them ever get collected and recycled.
The worst part is that it takes about 1000 years for your average shoe to decompose in landfill. There are literally mountains of discarded footwear in Australia, and addressing this problem is a mountain we all must climb together.
The good news is that there’s an initiative called TreadLightly, operated by the Australian Sporting Goods Association that allows you to recycle your old shoes and divert hundreds of tonnes from landfill at the same time. So, gather all your old or unwanted sports shoes, thongs, footy boots, trainers, runners and golf shoes – and send them to a better place. Literally.
Simply bring them into a designated collection centre. The footwear is then collected and sent to a recycling plant for sorting and breaking down. Next, the components get transformed into something useful, like gym mats, floors…even a kid’s playground. A playground or landfill? A simple choice really.
Now, if your shoes are still in pretty good shape and you think someone else could use them, why not sell them in the classifieds? Or, even better, you could donate them to charity. There are plenty of charity organisations and shoe banks that would really appreciate a decent pair of shoes.
Remember, you can’t throw old shoes into a recycling bin because it might contaminate a whole batch of recyclables. So, next time you need to get rid of a pair of trusty old sneakers, plan ahead and make sure they stay out of landfill.
Shoe recycling is available at all rebel stores. You can find your local rebel store by clicking the button below