Exactly how do your old kicks - and our manufacturing waste - get turned into Nike Grind material? It depends which of our two facilities processes them:

Wilsonville, Oregon:

Opened in 1993, our Wilsonville facility uses a “slice-and-grind” technique, where each shoe is cut into three slices - rubber outsole, foam midsole and fabric upper. These slices are then fed through grinders and purified. Once purified, these substances become three unique types of Nike Grind:

• Nike Grind Rubber, made from the shoe's outsole, is used in track surfaces, interlocking gym flooring tiles, playground surfacing and consumer products, such as new footwear outsoles and trim items like buttons and zipper pulls.
• Nike Grind Foam, made from the shoe's midsole, is used as a cushion for outdoor basketball and tennis courts, as well as futsal fields.
• Nike Grind Upper, made from the shoe's fabric upper, is used in the creation of cushioning pads for indoor basketball, volleyball courts and equestrian surfacing products.

Meerhout, Belgium:

Our Belgium facility, which opened in 2005, grinds shoes up whole, then passes the material through a series of complex separators. This also produces Nike Grind Rubber, Nike Grind Foam and Nike Grind Upper.

No matter how your shoes are processed, the end result is the same - three high-quality materials ready to be put back in the game. Learn more about Nike Grind, or find out how it gets used in sports surfaces and consumer products.