On Friday September 19th the Chico State WREC Climbing Wall overseen by Adventure Outings received a shipment of Evolv climbing shoes to replace the old ones on the shelves of our glorious, plastic gym.
As a supervisor at the rock wall, I disliked renting out shoes with big holes in the toes and broken straps to new climbers. It was unfortunate for people to try out our wall as a beginner and not be able to truly 'toe in' on a foothold because of our overused equipment. When Philip, the Equipment Room Manager let me know that an entire new box of shoes was sitting for us in the Equipment Room on Friday afternoon I was extremely stoked.
I ran down the hallway, literally jumping for joy at the thought of giving out some new rubber! "Woohoo new shoes! New shoes!" I shouted as I proudly carried a cardboard box that covered my head as I walked down the hall.
Salam and I then began to take the shoes off the wooden shelves that had a hole in the toe, broken straps or both! Then after admiring all the fresh new rubber on the Evolv shoes we marked the sizes in Sharpie on the sides of the new smooth blue material. After replacing about thirty pairs of old shoes with the new, I wondered what we were going to do with the old ones. Was the plan for them to go to the landfill? I know rubber does not compost very quickly and that shoes can be repaired for a fairly low cost.
I then researched if there were any rock climbing companies who had a recycling program. The first one to pop up was MadRock.
I found their webpage that states:
"What to do with your old climbing shoes... Here at Mad Rock we want to breathe life back into your old shoes and put them back into action. Our Rebuild / Donate program allows the concerned climber to either Resole / Repair or Rebuild / Donate. Help us keep climbing shoes out of the landfills and give charities in need a chance at climbing with your donation.
We have developed a Rebuild/Donate program which will give climbers the option to rebuild their old shoes for a small cost or donate to contribute to the charity of their choice to reduce waste in our landfills. We believe that setting aggressive business targets that embed our company responsibility goals into our long-term growth and innovation strategies will help in achieving meaningful changes in our industry"
So I contacted Allen at MadRock through email on Friday and he replied to my email on Monday morning. Allen said he would really enjoy our donation and to ship them to their company! The following week the shoe were shipped.
Chico State University strives to be a sustainable campus and at our training for the WREC center it was mentioned by the directors to do our best as employees to be continue to make the WREC sustainable. I desired to contribute and make sure that we at the climbing wall are doing our part!
Come check out the climbing wall and try out our sweet new shoes! We are open Monday through Friday from 12pm to 10pm, closed Saturday and open 3pm to 9pm on Sundays!
Our weekly events include Free Belay Classes taught by Tuck and Zach on Mondays and Thursdays from 7-9pm. Also, we have Tucker's All Request Wednesdays when Tuck takes music requests from 7-8!