Composting Slippers : Shoe Clean Out

Shoe Cubbies after Reducing

We had too many shoes by the door!  An understatement, considering my dh built me a shoe cubby with 5 slots for each of us.  Once again I forgot to take a before picture.

We found 4 pairs of summer shoes, that we put in a bin in the closet.  Then we found 1 pair of boots with a busted zipper, they were pretty used looking, so while they were probably repairable, but I do not have the funds to repair, and they were on the cusp of being outgrown.  If I had donated them they would throw them away.  So with some angst I did dispose of them.  I thought of offering on freecycle, however, it is unlikely that someone would be willing to put the $ into having them repaired.  I have tried selling new, unworn children's Ecco shoes for $15 and had no luck!  I would snap them up if I had a child that size, but people around here must feel that it is too much, and people willing to pay for quality just buy them new for $80 I guess. Also, I am in the process of trying to give away 2 gallons of good ceiling paint.  I have had at least 10 inquiries, but the pick up coordination is truly discouraging.

These are the shoes that left, except the Mary Janes, they were repaired

I repaired two of the pairs of shoes my older daughter outgrew so my younger can wear them.  The Wool slippers are from the wool of local sheep.  I had spun it into yarn and used Kool-Aid to dye it.  My son had worn a hole in the toe.  My daughter asked me to repair for her, but she has 3 pairs of usable slippers.  So I chose to compost these!!!

The little Ecco hiking boots will hopefully find some happy feet to take hiking.  My husband asked how I made it look so tidy!  My take-away from this is that I intend to buy no more slippers with plastic soles, I intend to make them compostable, wool slippers each year for Christmas.

Now if only I could find a place to recycle the incandescent bulbs that were here when we bought the house and are suddenly burning out all together.  It seems that locally I can only recycle the CFLs.  We are changing over to CFLs as the old ones burn out, and these can be recycled at Lowe's, Target, Home Depot, or Whole Foods, etc.

If you are trying to locate a place to recycle locally Earth911 is a great place to start.