Tall Aspirations For 'Mt. Sneaker'

Collected Sneakers To Be Recycled Into Turf, Tracks

Timothy Bleasdale

Issue date: 4/4/07

Athletic shoes are one of those items that eventually wear out, whether you're an avid runner or just casually work out. These same shoes often end up sitting in landfills where the parts of them that are actually able to decompose take a long time to do so. However, over the next few weeks, students will be given the option of an environmentally friendly resting place for those worn-out shoes.

The Office of Environmental Policy (OEP) in conjuncture with the EcoHusky student group, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and UConn Division of Athletics are sponsoring UConn's third annual sneaker recycling drive, according to Leah Giffin, a 6th-semester environmental policy major and OEP intern who is coordinating the drive.

Collection bins have been placed in 22 locations around campus, including residence halls as well as the Student Union, Co-op, classroom buildings, and 13 places in athletic department buildings. The collections began on March 19 and will continue through May 5.

"Sneaker recycling was a new incentive in 2005 and established a university-wide program to encourage the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe efforts at UConn," Giffin said.

At the end of the sneaker drive, the collected shoes will be donated to the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program through the cooperation of Willimantic Waste. The Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program recycles used athletic shoes by processing the shoe into its various component materials which can then be used in the construction of athletic fields, tracks and facilities.

But before the worn-out old sneakers are shipped off to Nike, they will be gathered in front of Gampel Pavilion on April 23, as part of an Earth Day celebration according to Giffin. The enormous pile is dubbed 'Mt. Sneaker'.

"Last year 2,000 pounds of [used athletic shoes] were collected," Giffin said. "This spring we are looking to collect more sneakers than ever, creating the largest Mt. Sneaker in UConn's history."

According to the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe Web site, the athletic surfaces produced from recycled sneakers are already in use in many of the world's top athletic facilities. One such facility is UConn's very own Mark R. Shenkman Training Center.

"Both the Burton Family Football Complex and the Mark R. Shenkman Training Center are [Green Buildings] built to LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] standards," said Mike Enright, associate director of athletic communications. "The field in the Mark R. Shenkman Training Center was made with a great deal of recycled materials."

While Enright said it was difficult to determine exactly how much of the field was made with material from recycled athletic shoes.

Since the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program began in 1993, Nike has used the over 16 million shoes collected to donate over 170 athletic surfaces such as tracks, tennis courts and playground surfaces to communities where better facilities are needed, according to the program's Web site.University of Connecticut