Oakland shop teams up with Warriors on making sneakers more sustainable
In downtown Oakland, some see Jeff Perlstein as a savior of souls. However, once inside his workshop, Perlstein does not intend to deliver anyone from evil.
These days, his mission in life is to save your sneakers.
"There's millions, billions of shoes in the world already and they're creating a lot of waste, unfortunately, a lot of toxicity for the planet," Perlstein told CBS News Bay Area.
Perlstein runs SoleSpace Lab. Here, there are several solutions "a foot" to make sneakers more sustainable.
Americans throw away tens of millions of pairs every year. These shoes are not biodegradable. Most end up in landfills, where they contaminate soil and groundwater.
A report published in "Unsustainable" gives details on how 300 million shoes are thrown away every year, and how polluting they are.
The nonprofit is a unique sneaker repair shop that focuses on sustainability and community learning.
"Lots of people are concerned about the future of our planet, our impact on it, but feel kind of helpless. So, this is a real opportunity for people to make a difference, to be very hands-on, and also express their creativity at the same time," explained Perlstein.
At SoleSpace Lab, workshops teach folks how to upcycle, refurbish, or customize their kicks.
The resulting handiwork is pretty cool, including a sneaker embellished with recycled cork; an elaborate landscape drawn on the sneaker, a "Wu Tang Clan" stunner; and just in time for the Golden State Valkyries, a purple rhinestone embellished sneaker decorated with laces embellished with tiny basketballs.
Perlstein showed CBS News Bay Area how sometimes sneakers just need new soles or just some whitening by using a UV light.
Joining SoleSpace Lab in the effort to save sneakers are the Golden State Warriors. Recently, the team threw a "Sustainable Sole" event at Thrive City outside Chase Center.
On hand to pump up the crowd, former Warrior Adonal Foyle. He helped to give away some lightly worn, very cool sneakers. The event attracted lots of young people.
"I saw they were giving out some free shoes and then you could also donate some shoes to help the community and the environment," explained Ahmed Omar.
Pop-up workshops on location showed participants ways to customize shoes.
"They have all these cool little stencils and stuff, so I was like, why not give it a try?" commented Alia Glover with a smile, as she delicately added some cute designs on her shoes.
We then saw Katt painting her shoes in a way that would please any Bruin fan.
"What I want to do is do half blue, half yellow on this shoe, I want to put the UCLA logo there," Katt explained as she pointed to one area on the shoe.
Pai'tyn Gray, 11, was painting a "freestyle" homage to Steph Curry on his shoe.
"My favorite player is Steph Curry, so I just did that," the young man said.
Foyle knows what's at stake. When he played for the Warriors, he burned through a lot of shoes.
"We pretty much used one sneaker a game," said Foyle.
Now Foyle's size 17s have a brand-new life as a prize for his charity golf tournament.
"Instead of giving someone a trophy, we give them a size 17 sneaker," laughed Foyle.
Back in Oakland, Perlstein said he feels hopeful about the future.
"This is a real opportunity for people to do something that's right in their hands. that they can be proud of, excited about, express their creativity, and actually make some change," he remarked.
