Maintenance
- Breaking-in: some shoes are made of hard but deformable material. After a person wears them multiple times, the material reforms to fit the wearer's feet. The person is said to have "broken in" the shoes.
- Polishing: for protection, water resistance (to some extent) and appearance, especially for leather shoes and boots.
- Heel replacement: heels periodically wear out. Not all shoes are designed to enable this.
- Sanitization: the inside of shoes can be sanitized with germicidal shoe trees or other cleansing methods to prevent the growth of microorganisms such as odor-causing bacteria or fungi.
- Sole replacement: soles can also wear out. Not all shoes can have their soles replaced.
- Shoelace replacement: shoelaces can sometimes be damaged or destroyed necessitating the replacement of the laces.
- When unfit for use, shoes can be treated as trash or municipal solid waste and disposed of. The exception can be with most athletic sneakers which can be recycled and turned into other raw materials. See Nike Grind as an example.
A person who makes or repairs shoes in a shop is called a cobbler.
Read more about this topic: Orthopaedic Footwear
Famous quotes containing the word maintenance:
“It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)