{"id":438,"date":"2024-04-19T18:10:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T18:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/three-tips-to-become-a-more-sustainable-runner\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T05:10:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T05:10:33","slug":"three-tips-to-become-a-more-sustainable-runner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/post\/three-tips-to-become-a-more-sustainable-runner\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Tips to Become a More Sustainable Runner"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Brian Metzler<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

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Monday, April 22 is Earth Day, that annual day we like to celebrate all things green and sustainable as runners, even though the shoes on our feet are typically a very noxious problem. How so? The manufacturing of running shoes is a dirty business that uses virgin materials and ships products all over the world. Furthermore, every running shoe I\u2019ve ever run in is still likely on the planet, in relatively good condition, given that it takes several hundred years for a shoe to break down and biodegrade. Considering I have been wear-testing running shoes for the past 25 years, it means there are a lot of my old shoes that haven\u2019t started rotting away yet. Ugh, that\u2019s a rough thing to think about.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Here are three ways to take a more sustainable approach to running shoes:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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1. Recycle Your Running Shoes<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It might take anywhere from 50 to 1,000 years for a pair of running shoes to break down and begin to biodegrade. On average it takes natural materials 25-80 years to break down, but the synthetic materials of a shoe made from plastics and petroleum take much longer, going up to 1,000 years to decompose. That should be all the reason you need to donate your shoes to an organization that will find someone who can continue using them before they are discarded, or better yet, use those shoes to implement bigger changes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can wind up taking running shoes for granted, because it\u2019s so easy for us to buy and use running shoes, and when we\u2019re done we just get rid of them. But they can be so valuable to someone else,\u201d says Mike Sandrock, founder of <\/span><\/span>One World Running<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u>, which collects and distributes used running shoes <\/span><\/span>to runners in need in the U.S., Honduras, Haiti and Cuba. \u201cIn many parts of the world, used shoes are so valuable and so cherished.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Here are a couple of other organizations doing good work on this issue:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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