As I entered the Hillsdale branch of the public library here in Portland just now, I was greeted in the lobby by great stacks of lightly-used athletic shoes stacked neatly in containers. Lots of containers, probably hundreds of pairs of shoes.
“Oh good,” I thought warmly, “they’re collecting shoes for people who don’t have any. Lots of folks need shoes.” But when I looked closer, I saw the shoes are being collected to be recycled into sport surfaces — to help children be more active.
Am I the only person who questions if new sports surfaces are the best use for perfectly good used shoes? It’s true that children in the U.S. are at record levels of obesity and badly need to become more active. But if children aren’t being active in the thousands of parks, fields, gyms and playgrounds our country already has, how will new sports surfaces suddenly inspire their activity? Visit Safe Routes to Schools to see how thousands of children are learning to safely bike and walk to school rather than be driven — an excellent way to become more active.
Moreover, what about the millions of people in the world with no shoes, period? Sometimes lack of shoes prevents people from being able to earn a living, and going barefoot year-round compromises many people’s health and safety. Not just my sense of humanity but my old-fashioned common sense tells me that these hundreds of pairs of athletic shoes belong not in a high-tech recycling project, but on the feet of people who lack shoes.
I see this misguided bias for the high-tech solution to be culture-wide, and not unique to this one particular company that energetically recycles all brands of athletic shoes into sport surfaces. That’s one reason I’m not naming the company here — our culture in general lacks the common sense I’m talking about, so there’s no reason to make this about one company.
The other reason is that this company is actually a national leader in corporate responsibility and sustainability practices, going to unusual lengths to disclose its sourcing and also to measure and reduce its carbon footprint.
It’s an indication of the complexity of the many facets of sustainability that I disagree with them on their used-shoe project at the same time that I admire the ethical standards they demonstrate elsewhere.
photo courtesy of Bill Gantz
Oh well said, that is an excellent example of wrong thinking…
Having recently been in a slum in India where, from my observation, about half the people do not wear shoes — many of them children — I say give them to those in need. There are plenty of other things that can be recycled to make sport surfaces.