Tempe is expanding its shoe-recycling program, adding school competitions and additional drop-off locations where citizens can recycle their old, worn-out sneakers.
A grant from the Arizona Recycling Coalition allowed the city to add four more collection locations, which should be set up by next month, said Lucy Morales, senior management assistant for the City of Tempe.
Seven Tempe schools signed up to participate in the shoe-recycling program, and the city is planning a contest to see which school can collect the most shoes.
“We’re in the process of expanding awareness and the opportunity to reuse your used tennis shoes,” Morales said. “We just want people to become more aware of it and know a resource is available to recycle shoes.”
In 2004, city council member Ben Arredondo, 62, made Tempe an official collection city by partnering with Nike in its Reuse-A-Shoe program.
On Thursday, Arredondo praised the cooperation of the city of Tempe and Nike, saying it is “a good way for [us] to work together and create a real win-win [situation] for everybody.”
A former physical education teacher, Arredondo said his experience as an educator prompted him to get involved in the Reuse-A-Shoe program.
“As an ex-P.E. instructor, I know kids just toss their shoes,” he said. “I thought it would be a good usage of these shoes to recycle and use them to provide good, clean [and] soft courts.”
The city collects shoes in bins around Tempe ó including one at the ASU Student Recreation Complex ó and ships them off to Nikeís processing plant in Oregon, Morales said.
With the four new locations, there will be a total of 11 drop-off spots in Tempe.
According to Nikeís Reuse-A-Shoe Web site, every part of the donated shoe is recycled. First the shoes are broken into three different parts: the rubber from the outer sole, the foam inside the sole and the fabric on top.
These different parts are ground up and made into a substance called “Nike Grind,” which is used to surface a variety of athletic courts like running tracks, tennis and basketball courts.
Arredondo, an ASU alumnus, credited ASU for its participation in Tempeís shoe-recycling program.
“With the SRC, all the intramural [sports] and the dorms, you can imagine how many shoes we get from ASU,” he said.
Since Tempe adopted the program in 2004, the city has collected about 15,000 shoes, he said.
Arredondo said he hopes Tempe will be able to exceed all previous collection this spring with the added collection locations and new school involvement.
Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu.
