by Melissa Breyer,


Each year Nike alone collects 1.5 million pairs of post-consumer shoes for recycling in their Reuse-A-Shoe program. Even though there’s a small but growing number of recycling programs popping up, with runners replacing their shoes every 300 to 500 miles there are a lot of old kicks kicking around, eventually most of them will end up studding a landfill.

Runners who want to reduce the landfill footprint of their footwear have a few options. Donate old shoes to a recycling program, run barefoot, or purchase sustainable running shoes. This is where Brooks Green Silence enters the picture. Made with roughly half as many parts as comparable shoes, each piece of this performance racing flat has a sustainable element.

Go BioMoGo

All Green Silence materials meet Brooks’ quality control standards for high-mileage training shoes. But one of the most innovative elements is the BioMoGo midsole. Traditional midsoles made of Ethylene Vinyl Acetate are one of the least biodegradable shoe components, lasting up to 1,000 years in a landfill.

Brooks added a non-toxic, natural additive that encourages anaerobic microbes to break down the material once the material hits an active, enclosed landfill. A five-year study found that BioMoGo degrades 50 times faster than the standard midsole in anaerobic conditions, and will save 29.9 million pounds of landfill waste in roughly 20 to 25 years.

Other Sustainable Components

  • 75% of the shoe’s materials are post-consumer recycled.
  • Biodegradable insole and collar foams.
  • Laces, gillies, and reinforced webbing are 100% post-consumer recycled.
  • Water-based adhesives are used throughout.
  • All dyes and colorants are non-toxic.
  • Packaging is 100% post-consumer recycled.

The shoes retail for $90, see Brooks Running for colors and performance details.

(Source: www.treehugger.com )