Your athletic shoes have pounded endless hours of pavement and maybe, gym floors. The kids have outgrown, hmm, how many pairs this year?

What do you do with those tired, dirty old friends when they're just too worn and smelly to wear any more? Nike, always at the top of their game, came up with a brilliant answer: recycle them, not into shoes but into "new places."

Your worn-out sneakers of any brand, not just Nike, can be turned into brand new playgrounds, running tracks, basketball and tennis courts, gym floors, soccer and football fields -- all kinds of sports surfaces.

Since 1993, Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe Program and NikeGO Kids, has recycled 16 million pairs of sneakers of all brands. The old or defective shoes are sliced into three parts, known as the Nike Grind, yielding three distinctly different materials. Each is used in a different way to produce these sporting surfaces:

In a longtime partnership with FieldTurf, The Nike Grind is incorporated into a state-of-the-art synthetic artificial grass produced by FieldTurf. Needing no water or fertilizer, this incredibly realistic surface is used by the Atlanta Falcons, the Green Bay Packers, the Detroit Lions, the Denver Broncos, and the Kansas City Chiefs, to mention only a few. This is the same sporting surface donated by Nike, so far, to some 200 needy communities around the world. Each FieldTurf field requires approximately the amount of rubber from 75,000 pairs of shoes. Over 7 million pounds of Nike Grind have been shipped for the FieldTurf surfaces since 1999.

Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe and the National Recycling Coalition have partnered to expand donation collection sites in the United States. Plans are to have collection partners in every state in the continental U.S. Other participating countries are England, Japan and Australia.

The program will not accept shoes with metal parts (grommets, eyelets, spikes, cleats) or shoes with the light-up feature. This is a used sneaker program, not a used boot, sandal or heels program. The brand of sneaker doesn't matter. Any brand of sneaker is accepted.

Nike's long-term goal is to keep kids active and healthy in their sneakers, while rescuing millions of pounds of our beloved old athletic shoes from the landfill. For drop-off locations, go to nikebiz.com and choose the "responsibility," tab, then click on these hyperlinks: ReuseAShoe, or Nike United States. If your state, city or town is not on the map, call 1-800-352-6543, Option 2, to speak to a live person. You can also check with your city hall, health clubs and schools. Local organizations can develop short-term collection programs. It's a winning philanthropic and environmental strategy for your community and a great way to involve your children in promoting a healthy environment.

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