New Life For Old Soles 2004
Over 5,000 pairs of shoes collected
for recycling and reuse!

San Mateo County residents responded heartily to the New Life for Old Soles shoe recycling program by turning in over 5,000 pairs of worn tennis shoes. RecycleWorks will send 5,000 pairs to the Nike Recycling Center to be ground up and recycled into tracks, ball fields, and tennis courts. Over 500 high-quality pairs will be donated to the Samaritan House in San Mateo for reuse. Shoes were collected at 30 public locations and 27 schools.

Where can I recycle my old athletic shoes
now that the San Mateo County collection is over?
Several shoe stores around the Bay Area collect worn shoes for recycling.

So how do the shoes get recycled?
After being collected, the shoes were sorted and any unacceptable items removed. Shoes in good condition were donated to the Samaritan House. The rest of the sneakers were put into giant cardboard boxes and trucked up to the Nike recycling plant in Oregon where each shoe is sliced into three sections: the rubber outsole, the foam midsole, and the fabric or leather upper. Each separate part of the sneaker is recycled into a material used in different types of sports surfaces. Visit the Nike website to find out more about the recycling process and the end products.