Lowery students can reuse your old shoes

Lowery first-grade students Emily Carrizales and Lawson Benedict show their enthusiasm for being env

Students at Cy-Fair Independent School District's Lowery Elementary School are finding good use for old athletic shoes and learning more about going green in the process.
The school's 2009-10 school year theme is Green and Growing," and the students and staff are making that happen by participating in the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe Program!
They started collecting shoes in mid-February and are running at top speed to collect 200 pairs of athletic shoes by this Friday, March 12.
Lowery speech pathologist Kate Stoneham discovered the program from recycling her own athletic shoes at the Nike Factory Store at the Houston Premium Outlets in Cypress.
Every student who donates a pair of athletic shoes will sign a paper sneaker to be displayed near the gym and cafeteria.
Every shoe brought to Nike's plants through this great recycling program is broken down into three parts the rubber from the outsole, fabric from the upper shoe, and foam from the midsole. Sorters separate these parts and place them on to conveyor belts, which move the parts into grinders that chop them up into raw materials for three different athletic surfaces.
The rubber is melted down to make surfaces for running tracks. The fabric goes into padding for basketball courts. The foam is transformed into a tough, springy surface for tennis courts. The program has collected 25,056,779 pairs of shoes in the past 20 years.
This is a fabulous program, if I do say so myself. I plan to drop off several pairs at the Nike Factory Store at the Houston Premium Outlets, which is the closest drop-off location in the Cy-Fair area it's located off of U.S. 290 and Mason Road in front of the Fairfield community.