For Keep Australia Beautiful Week (15-21 August 2022) TreadLightly is celebrating five suburbs that have ‘outrecycled’ other Australian suburbs by recycling the highest number of old shoes – to help inspire all Australians to step up and reduce their impact on the planet.
TreadLightly is a new national recycling initiative that takes unwanted sport and active lifestyle shoes, giving them new life as useful products like retail flooring, anti-fatigue mats, gym, and playground surfaces.
With shoe components taking up to 1000 years to breakdown, TreadLightly is on a mission to give consumers, retailers and manufacturers an opportunity to take real action and reduce their environmental footprint.
With 600+ collection locations across Australia, TreadLightly works closely with Australia’s leading sport and active lifestyle retailers and has recycled 400,000 pairs of shoes since the program first started, keeping 200,000 kgs of shoes out of landfill.
Australia’s Top 5 Shoe Recycling Suburbs:
| Suburb | State | Postcode | Pairs | Kgs |
| Drummoyne | NSW | 2047 | 3,228 | 1,614 kgs |
| Melbourne | VIC | 3000 | 3,218 | 1,609 kgs |
| Maribyrnong | VIC | 3032 | 3,120 | 1,560 kgs |
| Brookvale | NSW | 2100 | 2,974 | 1,487 kgs |
| Doncaster | VIC | 3108 | 2,652 | 1,326 kgs |
TreadLightly is powered by The Australian Sporting Goods Association (ASGA) and premium recycler Save Our Soles (SOS). Shaun Bajada, Executive Director, ASGA says that it’s great to see how Australians have responded to the initiative, and would love to see the community jump on board for Keep Australia Beautiful Week.
“Out of our top five suburbs, Victoria is the leading state when it comes to keeping Australia beautiful, followed closely by New South Wales. It would be great to see a little bit of friendly competition and have other Australian states and territories not too far behind,” said Bajada.
“Keep Australia Beautiful Week is the perfect time for Australians to reduce their impact on the environment by doing something as simple as going through their cupboard and dropping off any unwanted shoes at their local collection point,” added Bajada.
To help Keep Australia Beautiful and keep unwanted shoes out of landfill, simply head to one of TreadLightly’s 600+ collection points across Australia. Find your local collection point here: https://treadlightly.asga.com.au/collection-locations/