Accept & Proceed Uses 20,000 Upcycled Sneakers for a Playground in Belgrade, Serbia

Everyone knows that sneakers are for playing sports. But lesser known is that the materials composing them can be recycled into sport surfacing. Nike Grind, the company’s decades-old program contributing to its zero-waste goal, takes the rubber, foam, leather, textile, and plastic originating from manufacturing scrap, unsellable products, and worn-out athletic shoes and repurposes them—totaling 120 million pounds to date—into running tracks, turf fields, and basketball courts. That’s what happened at Blok 70, a formerly underused, decade-old park in Belgrade, Serbia, that’s been eye-catchingly and sustainably revamped by creative agency Accept & Proceed using sneakers upcycled by Nike, one of many projects the London-based certified B Corp has completed for the brand worldwide. A&P’s scope encompassed the graphic design, colorways, and refurbishment of Blok 70’s basketball court and its 13-foot-high chain-link fence, the fitness area, playground, and bleachers, and also extends to sneaker collection bins in the city’s squares and inside Nike stores. “We’re immensely proud,” A&P creative director Matthew Jones says, “to have a role in sowing the seeds for an active future and better tomorrow.”