Are you ever unsure about whether your unwanted shoes are suitable to be donated? You’re not alone. Following are a few thoughts and guidelines about whether you should donate or recycle your used shoes.

Donated goods are meant to be resold. All items, including shoes, donated to a thrift store or charity should be clean and in good condition. Donate your used paired shoes to a thrift store or charitable institution if they are in good condition (no holes, tears, or excessive wear), clean, and are still wearable. Ask yourself, “Would someone else want to wear these?” If the answer is “probably” or “yes”, then by all means, donate! Pairs of shoes donated to and sold by thrift stores provide an affordable option as secondhand footwear. Any shoes that don’t sell in the store are packaged and sent to a warehouse where they’re combined with other unsold shoes. Once a load of paired shoes is big enough (we’re talking tens of thousands of pounds of used shoes!) it is sent overseas, often to developing nations. There the shoes are sold in local markets, which helps bolster local economies while providing a much-needed commodity.

If, however, when you ask yourself, “Would someone else want to wear these?” the answer is “probably not” or “no”, then you should probably recycle your shoes. In other words, if the shoes in question have holes, show signs of excessive wear, or are in any other way unsuitable for wearing, recycling is the best option for them.

There are several ways to go about recycling shoes. Probably one of the oldest and best-known shoe recycling programs is Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program, has been recycling single and paired used shoes (and pre-consumer shoe waste) for more than 20 years. “More than 1.5 million pairs of worn-out shoes are collected for recycling each year in addition to thousands of tons of pre-consumer manufacturing scrap material that is also recycled. Since the program began, [they’ve] collected more than 28 million pairs of used athletic shoes.”

The footwear they collect, along with the pre-consumer shoe waste, are processed into sport surfaces such as indoor and outdoor basketball courts, running tracks, synthetic turf fields for baseball, football, and soccer, and playground surfaces. These sport surfaces are called Nike Grind, and are also incorporated into the manufacture of Nike apparel and products. A full soccer field uses 50,000-75,000 pairs of used shoes (outsole rubber), an indoor synthetic basketball court uses 2,500 pairs of used shoes (midsole foam), and an indoor wood basketball court uses 2,500 pairs of shoes (upper fabric).

No matter what the condition of your shoes, the one thing you should never do with used shoes is throw them away!

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EcoGoodz is a paired shoes supplier in the USA. We supply used shoes in both capsacks and gaylords. All of our shoes are paired, tied together either by their shoelaces or joined by rubber bands. We ship worldwide. Through our efforts we’ve kept millions of pounds of used shoes out of landfills. In addition to used shoes, we provide credential clothing, mixed rags, purses and belts, bulk linens, and toys (both soft toys and hard toys)For more information, please contact us.