‘Sure, We’ll RECYCLE Your Old Shoes,’ Running Store Employee Assures Customer

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Old shoes left at a local running store will be recycled, a store employee told a customer over the weekend, using exaggerated air quotes with the word recycled—a move the customer either didn’t notice or didn’t understand.

The customer, Irving Stowe, made the inquiry during a brief visit to the Runner’s Zone store Sunday afternoon, noting that he had several pairs of old running shoes and that he “would hate to just throw them away.”

A Runner’s Zone sales associate, identified only as Kara, assured Stowe that he could drop the shoes off at the store to be recycled.

“Oh, sure,” she said, nodding slowly, and raising her hands to perform the air quotes gesture. “We’ll ‘RECYCLE’ your old shoes, absolutely.”

“You can just put them there, in the ‘RECYCLING’ can,” she told Stowe, once again using air quotes, pointing to a large trash can near the store entrance.

Noting used coffee cups, soda cans, paper, and other trash in the can, Stowe hesitated.

“Looks like the DONATED SHOES sign fell off,” Kara said. “It’s OK, just toss them in.”

Asked how exactly old shoes are recycled, she told Stowe that “a group of, uh, eco workers comes every month and takes them to a place that turns them into, you know, new shoes and stuff.”

“It’s very cool,” she added.

Reached for comment later, Stowe said he left the store feeling good.

“I go through several pairs of running shoes every year,” he said. “So it’s nice knowing they won’t wind up in a landfill or something.”

At last report, Kara was seen throwing three large bags of trash into a Dumpster behind the Runner’s Zone store.