Shoe Recycling

The Stanford Recycling Center accepts sneakers and athletic shoes for reuse and recycling at the Drop Off Center at 701 Serra Street on the Stanford University Campus.

Hate to throw away an old pair of tennis shoes? Do something good for the earth and recycle your used athletic shoes.

What do we accept?

We accept relatively clean and dry sneakers and athletic shoes. We ask that the pairs of shoes be tied together for easier and faster sorting.

What do we not accept?

No dress shoes, flip-flops, sandals, boots, hiking boots or shoes with lights. No wet or muddy shoes - they cause the rest of the shoes to get moldy.

What happens to them?

First, we take clean reusable shoes and donate them to non-profit sports organizations. Our last load, we sent over 500 shoes to Afghanistan through a Palo Alto non-profit organization called From our Feet.

The shoes that are not reusable are shipped to a Nike recycling facility in Oregon where they are ground up and used to make athletic surfaces including tracks, weight room flooring and playground surfaces.

Three distinct types of Nike Grind material (upper fabric, midsole foam and outsole rubber) are made, each of which is used in a different way to make new sports surfaces. In addition, Nike also uses some of the byproducts from the manufacturing of outsoles of new Nike shoes as Nike Grind rubber. For more information on Nike’s innovative program, visit Nike's Reuse A Shoe Program.

In 2006, we sorted through 1134 pairs of shoes. We were able to send 584 shoes (284 adult shoes and 330 kids shoes) to Afghanistan through a Palo Alto non-profit organization called From our Feet. Metro Sport in Town and Country Village on El Camino in Palo Alto helped us to send 550 shoes for recycling. We estimated that we diverted 1515 pounds from the landfill!

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