At Sunday’s TCS London Marathon, an estimated 4,000 pairs of trainers were donated using the drop-off points provided by JogOn, the charity which works to repurpose unwanted trainers and prevent them from going into landfill.
An estimated 33 million pairs of running shoes end up in landfill each year, many of which have life left in them and could benefit others. JogOn notes that there are in the region of 18 billion pairs of running shoes sold in the world every year, yet there are also millions of people living with no access to shoes.
The JogOn journey began after Founder Tony Piedade read an article back in 2020 which reported that it can take up to 1,000 years to degrade a pair of running shoes in landfill. Keen to do something about this problem, he set up the JogOn campaign from his garage, where he still operates today.
To date, JogOn has removed over 20 tonnes of running shoes from landfill, and the campaign aims to keep one million pairs of trainers out of landfill each year.
Of the shoes received, 97% are still in good enough condition to be re-used with many miles left in them. These are sent to their charity partners, NGOs or micro-economies across the UK and overseas, and given to people who need them most. Those 3% that are end of life are disposed of sustainably in the UK via a waste-to-energy plant where electricity is generated from incinerating waste.
Tony Piedade, founder of JogOn, said “Our partnership with London Marathon Events gives a huge boost to our efforts to keep 1 million pairs of running shoes from going to landfill. By providing drop-off points at the London Marathon Running Show, where participants go before the event, we made it easier than ever for thousands of runners to donate their un-wanted trainers to a worthy and sustainable cause.”
JogOn has partnered with Evri as its official delivery partner. For £2, runners can download a postage label from the JogOn website that allows them to donate up to 40 pairs or 15kg worth of donated shoes to JogOn at one time.
