If the shoe no longer fits, don’t throw it in the landfill.

With all the things, stuff, and material we are throwing into the trash, there is one thing we haven’t done - the appropriate sole searching. Yes, we said sole searching. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Americans throw away at least 300 million pairs of shoes each year. These shoes end up in landfills, where they can take 30 to 40 years to decompose. As part of their S.C.R.A.P. Gallery recycling education program at Nellie N. Coffman Middle School, sixth-grade students have created a shoe art recycling project to bring awareness about the number of shoes in landfills. Using old sneakers, students recreated the footwear into dimensional art. The exhibit also provides alternative solutions to reduce the number of shoes entering the waste stream. The number one solution for old sneakers and athletic shoes is to donate them to thrift shops and nonprofit organizations. If your shoes are past the point of reuse, some recycling programs will take them, including Nike stores around the United States as part of the Nike Grind program. Nike Grind materials are a mixture of post-industrial manufacturing scrap and used and defective shoes. Those materials are reprocessed into new Nike Grind footwear and apparel.

“My shoe is to encourage people to be more aware of others and the planet. My shoe has plants, grass, and the earth. It says, “There is no planet B” to tell my audience about my shoe.” - Camila R., Sixth Grade.