It’s easy to wear out soles in a few months and shred zippers when you’re a speed walker or you live an active life. Even if you’re not a footwear demolisher, with autumn approaching your wardrobe is probably ready for a change. Whether it’s back to school or back to Zoom conference calls, now might be the time to retire your old footwear.
If you’re ready to say goodbye to your formerly crisp white Converse, you have a few options (besides the dumpster) to make room in your closet and give your running shoes a beautiful new life:
1) Support an Entrepreneur
Soles4Souls not only donates your unwanted shoes and clothes to families in need, they actively help break the cycle of poverty in communities across the U.S. and around the world. Soles4Souls empowers and supports entrepreneurs, especially women, in under-resourced communities in launching their own small businesses (selling donated shoes and clothes). In Haiti and Honduras, one donated pair of shoes can help provide food, shelter, and education for a family for one day.
Soles4Souls also protects the environment by reusing shoes and clothes. They keep products out of landfills, lower the carbon footprint of small businesses by providing them with donated items, and use your Adidas to put money into struggling economies. It’s a win on all sides.
If you’re super into Soles4Souls, you can set up a dedicated shoe drive to give more than the contents of your closet or buy a super cute T-shirt from their website to show your support.
2) Make Some Turf
If you’re too much of a sole crusher to donate your shoes, Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program accepts even the most ragged running shoes and has donation centers in stores around North America and Europe. Salvaging materials from worn-out athletic shoes, Nike creates new footwear as well as builds walkways, turf fields, courts, tracks, and playtops for playgrounds.
Reuse-A-Shoe is part of Nike Grand, an initiative by the company to move toward zero carbon and zero waste manufacturing to help protect the future of sports. You can nerd out by reading their Climate and Sport Study through Climate Impact Lab, which exhibits the connection between a stable climate and high athletic performance.
Reuse-A-Shoe accepts any brand of athletic sneakers, but unlike Souls4Souls, cannot accept dress shoes, flip flops, booties, or anything else you wouldn’t go to the gym in.
You can find your local Nike donation center here.
3) Give a Runner New Kicks
Purchased the wrong size of sneakers and too late to return them? You can donate those too. Your new or near-new sneakers can be donated to One World Running, which donates sneakers to runners around the world. One World Running is a Colorado-based, 100% volunteer organization. They collect soccer cleats and sports equipment in addition to running shoes and organize 5K walk-run events to promote health, fitness, and an exercise community across the world.
Each $195 One World Running raises sends 50 pairs of shoes to sub-Saharan Africa. The same amount of money sends 100 pairs of shoes to runners in Haiti and Central America.
As a volunteer nonprofit a little bit smaller than Nike, One World Running’s donation centers are less readily available. You can check out a drop-off center list on their website or mail your shoes directly to them.
4) DIY Your Shoes
You can always revive instead of recycle. Sometimes just replacing the laces can make an old pair of sneakers look like they've just stepped out of the box. You can also try finding a local cobbler to fix your boots in time for fall or buy new soles and insert them yourself. Get a refurbishment kit and start a new hobby restoring Doc Martens.
If you’re feeling extra ambitious, you can join the trend of painting Canvas shoes with everything from Disney characters to Van Gogh masterpieces. Instead of paying for a wine and paint night, get some friends, a bottle of whatever you have, and go to town turning your faded Vans into a homage to your favorite TV show.
5) Stock a Thrift Shop
It might be time to give back to your neighborhood thrift store. Most thrift stores accept donations of gently used clothes and shoes for store credit so you can turn around and buy those embroidered jeans you’ve had your eye on. Some big thrift chains like Buffalo Exchange will even pay you! They’re more selective and might not take everything you want to get out of your wardrobe, but you can make a drop-off appointment at your nearest store here.
Poshmark and ThredUp are other good options to sell used clothes without ever leaving the house. If handling your own sales is too much work, Buffalo Exchange also has a Sell By Mail program so you can buy and sell clothes in quarantine.
6) Start a Garden
If you’re unable to drop your shoes off or mail them to Souls4Soles, Nike, or One World Running, you can always repurpose your footwear as planters! Flowerpot shoes or boots are a fun and inexpensive way to spruce up your decor and give your succulents a comfy new home.
Vintage, leather, or other quirky shoes make great displays for cut flowers. Just fill a small vase with water and your preferred plant food, secure it into your boot, and admire. A cowboy boot full of sunflowers would be a fun centerpiece for a picnic or brunch date. Who needs mason jars when your desk can have roses in a granny boot?
For longer term plant homes, you can easily DIY a pair of old rain boots or other sturdy rubber shoes into inexpensive planters for your living room or your garden. Fresh Patio has a tutorial we love, and there are tons of inspirational pics on Pinterest. They make us wish we still had our iconic frog boots from kindergarten.
Whether you want to spread some good, make a little cash, or turn your living room into a quirky jungle, there are tons of options to give your unwanted footwear a new life this fall. And you’re making the planet a better place while you do it!
What’s your favorite way to reuse old clothes and footwear? Let us know in the comments below!
