Serbia shreds shoes, but not when it snows

Tanja Diklic (SD Petosevic) has informed the IPKat of what is reputedly the first ever destruction of counterfeit goods in Serbia by the Customs. This happy event (unless the goods were yours) apparently took place on 29 December 2006 but the photos have only just become available here.

Right: no more shoe-burning now! Environment-friendly shredding is the new way (shoes depicted here are from artpool.hu)

According to the Customs Authorities, a major obstacle to destruction was the lack of suitable facilities in Serbia for destroying plastics, rubber and other materials in an environmentally friendly way. Well, 13,000 pairs of counterfeit running shoes, bearing the trade marks of NIKE and DIESEL, have now been destroyed in a single day at the State waste facilities. Instead of burning the running shoes, as is done in other countries, the shoes were cut into small pieces by a large machine used for destroying tyres. It has been said that this machine cannot work in cold weather, so the IPKat has no doubt that the big IP owners are studying the long-term weather forecasts with care. Merpel says, if they made biodegradable, environment-friendly running shoes, they could just leave them out in the rain and let nature take its course ...

Biodegradable Vegan running shoes here and here (scroll down to Cheatah)
How to dispose of running shoes: donate them here
How to dispose of smelly feet here
Recipes for smelly feet here