Walk into any climbing gym and you will find gear at every stage of its life. First-timers renting shoes by the session. Regulars who have outgrown their beginner harness. Projectors rotating through multiple pairs of shoes a season.
The gear churn is constant. Almost none of it has anywhere useful to go.
We know this firsthand. SenderOne, one of LA's largest climbing gyms, handed us over 500 pounds of rental shoes. Shoes that had reached the end of their rental life but still had usable rubber, still had structure, still had use left in them for someone who just needed a pair to get on the wall.
When we asked about covering the cost to shred and recycle the shoes that could not be resold, they passed. The shoes existed. The disposal infrastructure existed. The will to pay for it did not.
SenderOne is not the problem. They are the example. Every climbing gym in the country has the same waste sitting in a back room right now. Rental shoes. Worn harnesses. Outdated belay devices. Gear that has served its purpose and has nowhere responsible to go.
The disposal cost gets externalized. To the environment. To whoever ends up holding the bag. It is the same pattern as the plastic mailer and the take-back program with no transparency. The industry generates the waste and someone else absorbs the cost of dealing with it.
what is missing
The most efficient resale infrastructure is the one that meets gear where it already is, among the people who already know what it is worth. A climbing gym is exactly that environment. Members know gear. They upgrade constantly. They know the difference between a shoe that needs a resole and one that is done.
What they do not have is a frictionless way to move gear out and find gear coming in. And what gyms do not have is a partner willing to build a real model around responsible disposal, not just the brand benefit of calling themselves sustainable.
what we are building
AIC's WildUp+ program puts resale infrastructure inside partner businesses with shared responsibility built in. Not just a rack on the wall. A real model where the partner has skin in the outcome.
The 500 pounds of SenderOne shoes are not an edge case. They are what the climbing industry's waste problem looks like up close. We are building the alternative.
If you run an outdoor-adjacent business and want to talk about what a real partnership looks like, reach out.
Learn more about WildUp+ partnerships at Articles in Common.
``` **Excerpt:** ``` Every climbing gym in the country has the same waste sitting in a back room. Rental shoes. Worn harnesses. Gear with nowhere responsible to go. We know because we picked up 500 pounds of it. ``` **Tags:** ``` climbing, SenderOne, gear exchange, resale, WildUp+, circular economy, brand accountability
