Geelong leads nation in shoe recycling

MORE than 3,000 pairs of old sneakers have been dropped off at a Geelong recycling collection station in the past 18 months.

Geelong’s Rebel Sports store has received over one tonne of used sports shoes at their shoe drop since the program started in November 2019.

Store manager Mark Ellis said it’s the most of any recycling sites in the state.

“The bins are overflowing, they hold about 100 shoes and we empty them out every three days. Then they are packed up and sent off for recycling,” Mr Ellis said.

The Geelong Rebel Sport store recently underwent a refurbishment and part of that included flooring made from recycled sneakers.

Mr Ellis said the community in Geelong had really embraced the program and it was becoming normal practice to bring in your old shoes when picking up a new pair.

The Geelong program is part of the Australian Sporting Goods Association (‘ASGA’) Save Our Soles national footwear recycling initiative which is aiming to bring about increased sustainability in the supply-chain.

There are now 79 collection points across Victoria and more than 100,000 pairs of shoes — equivalent to 35 tonnes — have been recycled since the program started.

ASGA executive director Shaun Bajada said the program was only getting started.

“We now have more than 179 collection points nationally and are hoping to grow that to 500 by the end of 2022,” Mr Bajada said.

According to organisers, 24.3 billion pairs of shoes are produced worldwide each year and each pair takes at least 1,000 years to decompose.

The recycled shoes are run through a shredder, metal is extracted and recycled, and then the product is mixed with other recycled rubber to create products such as rubber flooring, running tracks, and yoga mats.

The whole process takes place in Australia.

Save Our Soles founder John Elliott said Australia’s efforts were unique.

“No region in the world except Australia has got an industry solution to recycle sport shoes,” he said.

“The best part is the consumer can see the end-of-life solution.

“When you go into sport stores like Rebel, SportsPower, JD Sports and others, you can drop off your old shoes and you can actually stand on the rubber matting made from your old shoes.

“It’s nice for people to see the whole closed loop.”