What do you do with your old ice skates?

Toss them?

Maybe pass them down to a younger sibling, if they're into skating?

Tanya Jay and Kaja Laybourn, high school juniors and competitive synchronized skaters in Massachusetts, have found a better answer. Eighteen months ago, they launched an initiative called Skating Beyond in the pursuit of multiple avenues for the reuse and recycling of old figure skates and their components. What they've accomplished during that short time span is eye-opening.

But let's start at the beginning.

A few years ago, the forward-thinking teenagers became aware of the many pairs of skates that were piling up in their respective homes; skates that they either grew out of or could no longer make use of. They began thinking there must be a better way.

"Many of these skates were still usable, just not for our competitive level," Jay said. "We wondered if there was a way to reuse them and help people overcome the barrier of the high cost of skates."

They conducted a nationwide survey of skating rinks and skate manufacturers and found that there were unmet needs not being addressed. In early 2024 they launched their first used skate collection drive, simultaneously reaching out to local adaptive skating programs (for individuals with developmental and physical disabilities) to see if participants could make use of quality used skates.

"It was a lot of trial and error, but that helped us build more information about what works and what doesn't," Laybourn said.

Through those efforts, the teenagers connected with Figure Skating in Harlem, a nonprofit organization providing access to figure skating and academic support to young women living in New York City's Harlem community. They proposed taking skates that couldn't be reused and turning them into flower vases or holiday décor and selling them at an event in Boston to benefit Figure Skating in Harlem.

It clicked and quickly grew into a recycling program for skates that could be reused.

"We are 97-percent donor supported," Naomi West, chief growth officer for Figure Skating in Harlem, said. "We try to avoid as many expenses as we can. They created this pipeline to us for skates that need to be retired for size reasons but not for quality reasons. And they give us inventory about every six months."

In the process, Jay and Laybourn found that the craft of decorating used skates can be both fun and educational. They approached local rinks and soon began hosting workshops during the rinks' summer skating camps where participants could decorate skates and then take them home.

"We're teaching them about sustainability and its importance in the sport, but also how to have fun with the craft," Jay said.

Building on the education component, the teenagers launched a "Skating Through Science" workshop series that brings STEM to the rink with four free, downloadable, off-ice activities: Skater Anatomy Relay (biology), The Physics in a Spin, Cool Chemistry and Environmental Science.

That impressed West.

"We are a unique organization as the first nonprofit in the world to focus on skating and education together," she said. "So [Skating Beyond] is a good partnership. And every time I talk to [Tanya and Kaja] I'm blown away by their level of maturity and sophistication."

Now the teenagers are looking to take their initiative nationwide. They reason that long-lasting change requires more than a program. It requires a movement, and they're launching their Skating Beyond Ambassador Program, using social media and their website (SkatingBeyond.com) to reach youth figure skaters who want to use their passion for the sport to create an impact in their local community.

"We have a plan and the materials, and we can provide that to organizations," Jay said. "We've already received interest, and we're hoping to get even more people involved so we can have a nationwide impact."

West loves the approach.

"We've looked at expanding our model with very much that same mindset," she said. "The ambassadorship model is an incredibly smart way to grow their impact in different parts of the country. I think these two have secretly gone to business school."

What about boots that are completely unusable and unsafe to skate in? The teenagers covered that base too, reaching out to Riedell Skates about recycling the materials in their skates. They learned much of the accumulated scrap is pure leather, which is all reusable. Riedell has since sent the teens more than 100 pounds of scrap leather, which they in turn donated to a local nonprofit art center for crafts projects.

West said the entire initiative is a very figure-skating mindset. You get on the ice, start moving, and if you fall, you get back up and keep going. And you try harder.

"They're taking the lessons of skating and applying them to what is ultimately a business concept," West said. "It's really brilliant."