Save our soles! Cobblers on the 15 best ways to look after your shoes

"The UK dumps 149m pairs of shoes in landfill annually. This is unacceptable when the vast majority can be fixed. Sometimes all it takes is a small gluing or stitching job, and you're only paying £4 then those shoes might last for another 12 months or even longer."

"With holes in shoes, we can put patches behind and make it look as best as possible from the outside. For splits down the sole, we can put a piece of leather to reinforce the shoe and feed that underneath the insole. This goes for vegan shoes, too."

"If you could pay a quarter or half the price of a pair of trainers for a resole, and your shoes are back on the road again, then job's a good 'un. It is a sought-after repair because trainers are expensive."

Shoe maintenance is becoming obsolete as trainers replace traditional footwear and people discard shoes frequently. However, cobblers can repair nearly all shoe damage through patching, stitching, sole reinforcement, and rubber replacement. The UK discards 149 million shoe pairs annually despite most being repairable. Small repairs costing around £4 can extend shoe life by 12 months or longer. Repairs work on leather, vegan, rubber, and plastic shoes. Expensive trainers benefit particularly from resole repairs costing a quarter to half the original price. When purchasing shoes, prioritize comfort and quality materials, checking inside for genuine leather construction.

Read at www.theguardian.com