If you have shoes you want or need to get rid of, there are a ton of options. The very best thing you can do, obviously, is give the pair to someone who needs them. It could be a friend or family member, but you can also link up with any number of charities like Soles4Souls, which takes sneakers and shoes (in any condition) and finds a way to use them. If the shoes are brand new and you want to make some extra money, you can post them on eBay or Grailed and get a couple bucks back. Perhaps the worst thing you can do with them is just throw them in trash.

But that's what Nike's new store in SoHo is doing: throwing seemingly brand new sneakers in the trash. The New York Times reports that Ryan D. Matzner found trash bags filled with sneakers outside Nike's SoHo store waiting to be picked up by trash collectors.

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Hey @nike! You say you don't throw shoes away, but I saw your SoHo store do just that! What's up? https://t.co/ysv2YDYGVh pic.twitter.com/KjGZYTZNs2 — Ryan D. Matzner (@rdm) January 27, 2017

It's not bad enough that the store was just tossing the shoes out—if they were doing that, intrepid good Samaritans could snatch them up and distribute them to those in need, or sell them at a deep discount. No. The employees at Nike's new store are slashing up the shoes to make them unwearable.

Are you as disappointed by this as we are?

We're going to give the company the benefit of the doubt for about five minutes, since we haven't seen an official statement from Nike that excuses this practice. Still, there's this: "A small amount of product at our Nike SoHo store did not meet our standards to restock, recycle, or donate so it was disposed of," Joy Davis Fair, Nike spokeswoman, told The New York Times. That's hardly an answer, and doesn't take into account the vast array of options available for anyone looking to get rid of pairs.

There are a few legitimate, if unsophisticated, reasons to trash sneakers.

Ryan D. Matzner/@rdm

The simplest possibility is that the store's policies dictate the shoes cannot be sold. If Nike doesn't want them to be swooped up and sold by someone else, or to have the brand's cachet injured by being on the feet of the homeless or poor, then they must be destroyed. It's doubtful that Nike is afraid of being seen on the poor since the company does a very good job of manufacturing accessibly priced sneakers, and has a history of giving away sneakers to those in need. But it is a very real concern by many brands that others will profit off their work. This can all be solved through donation to a large charity that will handle all the product in an unbroken chain of possession.

It's also possible that the store couldn't sell the product because it's defective. If we believe that no one should be wearing these shoes because the sole unit would do more harm than good, then, yes, they should be destroyed. But companies like Soles4Souls take shoes that are unwearable and pulp them, turning them into running tracks at schools in low-income communities. This isn't the same as recycling. Recycling is brand-to-brand and turns defective shoes into new shoes, and therefore requires a certain quality standard. When being pulped into a running track, that standard is much, much lower. The shoes don't have to be added to already-bloated landfills; they can be turned into something useful and valuable.

The shoes don't have to be added to already-bloated landfills; they can be turned into something useful and valuable.

Nike is historically very responsive to issues like the one that the Times uncovered, so we're eagerly waiting to hear how it's going to change this policy. We're betting that Nike Corporate doesn't even have to get involved, and instead the store can take the initiative on its own, changing this behavior immediately. Either way, the current destruction of merchandise is inexcusable, and easy (and inexpensive) to fix—not to mention a great opportunity for positive PR.

Until then, we'll wait. And be disappointed.

Pete Forester Pete Forester has been a contributor to Esquire since 2016.

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