Did you commit to trying a new green practice in honor of Earth Day last week? Or maybe you want to encourage your community to divert a new item from the solid waste stream. If you're like us, it's hard to find something you don't already do! Here's an idea that might be new.

How many pairs of shoes do you have in your closets, piled up by the door, or scattered around the house? Do you have shoes that you wore once or twice only to sit in a closet for years? What do you do with your old, unwanted shoes? Read about Changing Footprints, an Indiana non-profit organization that helps to divert shoes from the waste stream, in this month's feature below.

If you have new materials to divert or new programs you want to educate your community about, Eco Partners would love to help you do that! Please email me or give me a call.
Keep on reusing and recycling!

Elizabeth Roe
Eco Partners Inc.
317-450-3346 
Changing Footprints changes lives:
Donate — don’t trash — unwanted shoes
The average person in the U.S. owns about 17 pairs of shoes, buys six to seven new pairs of shoes every year, and donates or sells only about 15% of all of their unwanted old shoes and clothes.

The rest (almost 60 pounds per person per year) ends up in landfills, taking decades to break down and using up valuable space. To make matters worse, much of the footwear being landfilled could really benefit people who don’t have shoes or don’t have the right shoes to fit their needs.

To address both of these concerns, co-founders Bob Broughton and Maureen Leisure created Changing Footprints. This all-volunteer, non-profit organization in Indiana collects unwanted shoes and distributes them for FREE to kids and adults who need them, locally and internationally.

Most recently, volunteers at Changing Footprints helped sort, clean, transport, and provide 3400 pairs of gently used shoes to the Afghan refugees who were temporarily housed at Camp Atterbury in Indiana. Many of the refugees left their homes in Afghanistan quickly and arrived with very few belongings. The donated shoes came just in time for the refugees to have warm footwear for the winter. Read more about this inspiring organization here. 

Image Credit: Adam Smigielski | E+ | Getty Images
Eco Partners helps you deliver local environmental education cost-effectively and efficiently.

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