Tony calls on more gyms to join his campaign

A RECENTLY launched campaign aims to keep one million pairs of running shoes out of landfill.

JogOn was devised by keen runner Tony Piedade last spring after he read a newspaper article which said that it takes 1,000 years for a pair of running to degrade in landfill.

“It got me thinking that I needed to do something about this as, like me, I’m sure there are many people who have several pairs of trainers kicking around,” he said.

“I created a website over a weekend then broke it to my wife that we were starting to collect old pairs of trainers in the garage.”

Tony, who lives in West Sussex, spoke to a number of his contacts at universities that he knew from another running website – joggingbuddy.com – that he set up in 2009, and they loved the idea and set up collection boxes for him.

He added: “It snowballed from there really. Ten months after we launched last April we are now in 14 universities, more than 250 leisure centres including major operators such as Everyone Active, Places Leisure and Parkwood Leisure and several libraries and schools.

“Last summer I built the biggest garden shed that I could that doesn’t require planning permission, and between last April and December I received just shy of 7,000 pairs of shoes.

“What amazed me was that a good 97 per cent of them were still usable, even if they were no good for a runner who was planning to do a marathon because the cushioning had gone.”

The pairs that are no good are packaged up and sent to an energy plant where they are then burnt and the ash used to make tar for roads.

The ones that are reusable are cleaned and shared out between six charities for the homeless and refugees both at home and overseas.

Tony has sent shoes to Kurdistan, Bolivia and Honduras to date.

“A PE teacher nearly had me in tears a few weeks ago when he told me that they had had to stop doing sport at the school where he worked because a lot of the children hadn’t got any relevant shoes so they were just having to do lessons in the gym.

“We are now sending shoes to four schools in this country so that their pupils can now do PE.”

Tony is now looking for more independent gyms to act as collection points for trainers.

He has joined forces with delivery and courier service Evri and gyms anywhere in the UK can send 15kg of trainers (approximately 30 pairs of trainers) directly to him for just £2.

“A lot of gym goers’ trainers have never seen dirt as they only go on treadmills or gym floors.

“I would urge gym owners to please get in touch so they can start collecting their members’ unwanted trainers on our behalf so we can make good use of them either at home or overseas.”

If your gym would like to get involved with the JogOn campaign please email Tony at tony@jogonagain.com or visit www.jogonagain.com