Today I received a new laptop battery – it’s pretty exciting for me because my current battery only holds a charge for about 5 minutes.  So now I’m back humming 100% with this new battery and able to go about my day in my usual un-tethered manner! But what remains of this re-battery process is my old battery. Pretty much a useless item to me, so what do I do with this item which clearly has some toxic components inside of it? Dell did not provide any instruction for what to do. Ahh!!

So that’s my rant for the day – but it got us thinking about the afterlife of a Common Soles flip-flop. From the beginning we always told customers that they could return their old and worn out Common Soles to us, but since we’re only about a year old it just really hasn’t come up yet. So here it is – official now because it’s being written on our website which in 2010 terms means it might as well be the 10 Commandments.

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR OLD AND UNWANTED COMMON SOLES:
Drop them off at our offices in Austin or Wellesley if you live or work close by. If you can’t do that than simply stick them in the mail and ship em’ to us. First class mail via the Postal Service will probably be your easiest and most economical choice.

Send them to:
Common Soles – Sole Recycle Program  P.O. Box 812575 Wellesley, MA 02482

After receiving your tired soles we’ll drop them into our Sole Recycle program which means they will be dismantled and separated into their respective components (strap, insole, outsole). Those components will then be sent to their respective source of recycling. For EVA insoles that will be the EVA vendor which chops up old EVA and turns it into new EVA! And so on for all the other parts.

And about that laptop battery – I eventually did find a solution thanks to my friend Google. Check out: http://www.call2recycle.org to find a battery recycling center closest to you.