For most of us, it's become an annual -- or even seasonal -- habit to donate gently used clothes and shoes to shelters, thrift stores and other organizations that put them to good use; when it comes to worn-out sneakers with holes in the bottom, though, the only alternative seems to be the trash can.  

But the minds behind Nike have a better idea: since 1990, the corporate giant's Reuse a Shoe program has repurposed tired old athletic shoes into surfaces for basketball courts, running tracks and playgrounds, somewhat poetically bringing the art of play full-circle.  Apparently, when it comes to reducing the company's impact on the ecosystem, "Just Do It" is more than a catchy tag line.

Breaking used shoes down into the materials necessary to create durable athletic surfaces was an idea that -- well, surfaced... pun intended -- in 1990 with the emergence of a project called Nike Grind.  By the end of the decade, the movement had picked up speed, and the XXVII Summer Olympic Games in Sydney were the first major sporting event to make use of a Nike Grind athletic court.  In 2002, the company celebrated its 30th anniversary by donating 90 surfaces to parks across Portland, Oregon, providing safe spaces for kids of all ages to play.

If you and your family have put your kicks through their paces, all it takes to participate in the Reuse a Shoe program is a quick drop-off at any Nike or Converse retail store.  All athletic shoe brands are accepted as long as the shoes are dry and contain no metal; to boot, in 2010, LIVESTRONG announced its partnership with the program, which now accepts the Lance Armstrong Foundation's yellow rubber bracelets for recycling too.  

While Nike sells its Grind surfaces for profit, it donates quite a few as well; altogether to date, it's repurposed more than 28 million pairs of old shoes.  That's 56 million sneaks diverted from landfills and put into productive play areas instead -- to which we say, game on.