THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2008
Giving Shoes A 2nd Chance
The results of the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County's (SWANCC) ninth athletic shoe collection for Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe (RAS) program were seen Wednesday and yesterday (Thursday) at SWANCC's processing facility near Central and River roads.
Volunteers from Boy Scout Troup 235 in Mt. Prospect, Emerson Middle School in Park Ridge, and MacArthur Middle School in Prospect Heights lent a hand in helping unload shoes from collection vehicles and boxing them up for transportation to Nike's recycling facility in Oregon.
Numerous fifth and sixth grade home-schooled students from nearby communities also sorted shoes and helped box and load the footwear onto trucks.
According to Mary Allen, director or recycling and education, 7,000 pairs of shoes were donated last year.
Nine-year-old Melissa Pollina of Mt. Prospect enjoyed gathering shoes to recycle.
"This is part of our unit study for recycling," explained Pollina. "I want to do it again next year."
Allen added that students began collecting shoes last fall throughout the entire school year.
SWANCC has over 100 collection partners that include schools, municipalities, park districts, businesses and libraries within the region.
During the school year, collection partner coordinators agree to promote the program, establish a local drop-off for acceptable shoes and bring them to SWANCC's Transfer Station, 1151 N. River Road.
Since 2000, SWANCC has collected over 49,000 pairs of shoes for Nike's recycling program. Old shoes become "NikeGrind," a material used in making new athletic sport courts, surfaces and fields.
To date, Nike has collected more than 20 million pairs of athletic shoes from its 26 RAS partners throughout the United States.
The Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) is an intergovernmental agency comprised of 23 towns including: Arlington Heights, Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Kenilworth, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Mt. Prospect, Niles, Palatine, Park Ridge, Prospect Heights, Rolling Meadows, Skokie, South Barrington, Wheeling, Wilmette and Winnetka.
SWANCC provides a number of special recycling collection events for its residents including computer and electronics, document destruction, medicine and sharps disposal, Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb (CFL) recycling and athletic shoe recycling.