Recycling Athletic Shoes

What were 359 pairs of old athletic shoes doing (aside from not smelling too great!) outside the front doors at Finland Elementary in Columbus, Ohio, throughout the 2005 school year? Believe it or not, they were helping the environment. Finland’s PTA collected them from families while participating in Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program. The shoes were then sent to Oregon for recycling and made into surfaces for playgrounds and tracks.