Nike put soles into their corporate soul

Giant Corporations having an ethical (and impacting) sense of social responsibility is not a new thing although it sometimes seems that way. It’s approaching twenty years since Nike began a quest to reduce the company’s environmental footprint and reduce the amount of shoes that ended up in landfills. When you consider the components of a shoe it’s safe to assume many of our 1982 converse hi-tops are just sitting in landfills throughout the continent, or a least the rubber sole would be (my Beatles reference was not planned).  Nike introduced the program ‘Reuse-A-Shoe’ In the early 1990’s as a very demonstrable way of promoting social responsibility.  Better still the program doesn’t get selective, they take any brand of used running shoes, separate them and then create a product they call Nike Grind.

The concept is great, most used shoes include three types of raw materials manufacturing by-products: rubber from the outsole, foam from the midsole and fabric from the upper shoe. Each of the individual materials are ground up and then used by select companies to create that rubberized surface you often see in sport and playground surfaces, in addition the recycled compounds are used in numerous Nike apparel, footwear and equipment products. The idea is far more than whimsical as well (for those who view these initiatives with suspicion rest assured), to emphasise point that take Nike ACG who developed a range of apparel trim and accessories including snaps, buttons and zipper pulls that are made from 50% to 100% Nike Grind material. The applications are both versatile and achievable, for example a basketball court can be composed of materials from 2,500 pairs of shoes or a running track from 75,000 pairs of shoes.

Initially Nike were able to collect used shoes at key retail locations and then partnered with the National Recycling Coalition which expanded the program to allow for shoe collections in many more locations throughout the country. One of Nike’s longest-running environmental community programs Reuse-A-Shoe is a key component of the company’s goal of tying in the Nike manufacturing process while actively promoting social responsibility.  The numbers speak louder than the idea, over 1.5 million pairs of post-consumer shoes are collected for recycling each year. This is in addition to thousands of tons of manufacturing scrap material that is recycled. The total number of used athletic shoes since the program started is now beyond 21 million pairs. Nike Grind is used in Canadian playground surfaces, however there are no drop-off locations as of yet.

As I’ve mentioned before on the blog while all initiatives are to be endorsed and supported it is critical that giants such as Nike takes promoting social responsibility to the next level and begins programs that are relatively easy for the consumer to participate in. The Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program means enjoying your new sneakers is not compromised by what happens to the old ones – just be sure and put them back into circulation. Just do it !