The Maine Running Company has started a running shoe recycle program, which is great news for Southern Maine. Before the program began at Maine Running, the closest shoe recycling center was in New Hampshire and they only accepted a few pairs of shoes at a time.

Maine Running Company will sort through all donated shoes and will give ones that are still in a usable condition to the Preble Street Shelter here in Portland, Maine. The rest of the shoes will be ground up and used to make track and basketball surfaces. This seems to me to be a much better fate than decomposing in your local transfer station or land fill.

Maine Running Company will accept any number of shoes that you would like to recycle, and offers a $5 coupon off of your next pair of new running shoes for each pair that you bring in. They do limit the coupons to 3 per person at any given time, however.

I did not see a need to bother taking any coupons when I was there for the Resolution Run a few weeks ago. I brought half of a dozen pairs of shoes that my wife and I had been stockpiling for the next time we remembered to bring them with us on a trip through New Hampshire.

Maine Running Company is located at 563 Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine.

You can see them online at: www.mainerunning.com