Organizations' proposed pilot targets textile recycling in North America

The end of the year can spark the desire to clean out your closets as you prepare to welcome the new year. Goodwill is a likely destination for those once-loved garments that have lost their appeal over the years.

But not everything the workforce development network and secondhand retailer receives is suitable for resale.

That reality has led Goodwill to pursue a three-year initiative with Reju, a chemical recycler, designed to help advance textile recycling in North America in collaboration with WM. Through the pilot project, the organizations plan to develop a collaborative model for regional textile collection, sorting, reuse and recycling that is intended to divert textiles from the waste stream and increase their recycling rate.

Local Goodwill leaders from across North America have been working with GII’s sustainability team to develop the potential project. The Goodwill steering committee is comprised of leaders from Goodwill of Delaware and Delaware County (Wilmington), Goodwill of the Finger Lakes (Rochester, New York), Goodwill Industries of West Michigan (Muskegon), Goodwill of Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia (Maple Shade, New Jersey), Goodwill Industries of South Florida (Miami), Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona (Phoenix), Goodwill Industries Ontario Great Lakes (East London), Goodwill Renaissance Quebec, (Montreal) and Goodwill of Tenneva Area Inc., (Kingsport, Tennessee).

Prioritizing highest and best use

“Roughly half of the total donations we receive are suitable for our traditional retail stores and e-commerce,” says Brittany Dickinson, sustainability director for Goodwill Industries International (GII), Rockville, Maryland. “The remaining donations that don’t meet the quality standard are sold in Goodwill outlet stores, which are wholesale establishments that sell items at significantly lower prices. After exhausting all our retail channels, leftover product is sold in bulk to aftermarket buyers who then sort materials into different categories for resale or recycling, depending on the needs of their network of buyers.”

Dickinson says textiles will stay on the retail sales floor from three to five weeks in an average Goodwill.

GII’s objective is to ensure the textiles it receives go to their highest and best use, she says. However, the company recognizes the need to transform some textiles into recycling feedstock, and unwearable textiles or those that do not have a market for reuse will be sorted for recycling.

“Reuse remains the highest form of sustainability and circularity, and Goodwill prides itself on being the best steward of donated goods,” says Colleen Morrone, president and CEO of Goodwill of Delaware & Delaware County and chair of the Goodwill Sustainability Committee. “Now we are on an innovation journey to develop new ways to find the highest use for all of the items entrusted to our care.”

“With our more than 3,300 stores and donation centers within 10 miles of 83 percent of the U.S. population, Goodwill has the infrastructure and the public trust to serve as a collection point for textiles,” says Jennifer Lake, president and CEO of Goodwill of the Finger Lakes and chair of the Goodwill Circularity Subcommittee. “As the extended producer responsibility (EPR) movement gains force, we are inviting brands to work with us to create new solutions for managing product.”

Building on GII’s research

GII’s planned project with Reju and WM builds on research it conducted to assess fiber composition of unsold textiles and develop the skills and systems to transform unwearable textiles into recycling feedstock.

As part of that research, GII conducted a two-year pilot project to develop skills, systems and infrastructure to aggregate, sort and prepare textiles for reuse and recycling across its network. The results of the $1.28 million textile circularity project, funded by the Walmart Foundation, to transform unsellable textile donations into feedstock for textile recycling, were shared at the Goodwill Sustainability Summit this past August. 

At the conference, Goodwill announced plans to conduct a traceability study, also funded by the Walmart Foundation, which will support a multistakeholder initiative to follow the global journey of secondhand textiles. The $2 million study will inform reuse and recycling strategies and help shape industry standards for traceability and product life cycle stewardship, GII says. 

The two studies align with the GII’s network’s goals of increasing waste diversion, improving accountability and transparency, maximizing the value of donations and making a positive impact on communities around the world. 

The first grant, the textile circularity research project, was launched in the summer of 2022 in partnership with Accelerating Circularity, headquartered in New York City. The fiber composition of items at the end of their reusable lives was analyzed for use as high-value recycling feedstock. Approximately 60 percent of the materials in the study, which included cotton, polyester and cotton/poly blends, were suitable for existing recycling technologies.

The pilot involved the creation of four regional textile hubs in Canada, Michigan, the Northeast and the Southeast, representing 25 local Goodwill organizations. The hubs sorted and graded postretail textiles to identify reusable materials that could be resold and nonreusable textiles that would be used to create feedstock that meets recyclers’ specifications.

As part of the grant, each of the four regional hubs developed business plans and advanced sortation models that can be replicated across the Goodwill network and adopted by other social enterprises for the advancement of textile circularity.

Proposed project partners

GII’s network is made up of 154 local nonprofits across the U.S. and Canada. The organization plans to partner with Houston-based WM on pilots to collect, sort and grade discarded textiles for resale.

“Goodwill is exploring a variety of systems for textile sortation,” Dickinson says. “The goal is that technology will be used to sort unwearable textiles. We are in conversations with the leading providers of advanced sortation technology for textiles.”

A portion of the remaining textiles unsuitable for resale is expected to be provided to Reju.

Paris-based Reju was incorporated a year ago and is owned by engineering and technology company Technip Energies of France. The company recently opened its first operating unit, Regeneration Hub Zero, in Frankfurt, Germany, that usesVolCat, an IBM technology for recycling end-of-life polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, packaging and polyester fabric.

Technip Energies, IBM and Under Armour have been working together since 2021 in a joint venture to bring VolCat to industrial scale. Regeneration Hub Zero is expected to begin production in 2025.

Reju Polyester is expected to have a 50 percent lower carbon footprint than virgin polyester and can be regenerated infinitely, GII says in the news release announcing the planned partnership.

“To tackle the challenges posed by discarded textiles, we need radical collaboration and cooperation, and through our potential project with Goodwill and WM, we are building the ecosystem to achieve textile circularity,” Reju CEO Patrik Frisk says. “Reuse is, and will continue to be, the highest value and is essential to the circular economic model for the benefit of all. Yet, among the products that are not reused, less than 1 percent are recycled globally today. A textile-to-textile circular ecosystem can only be optimized when more textiles are diverted from the waste stream and into the recovery cycle. Goodwill and WM are looking to play a critical role in recovery through the collection and sorting of textiles in North America.”

Reju anticipates building a U.S.-based regeneration hub to serve the American market. Certain materials collected through Goodwill and WM that are not viable for resale are expected to feed into the U.S. hub.

While Frisk does not specify where in the U.S. Reju intends to build his hub, he says “our goal [is] for it to be operational in 2028.”

Embracing circularity

GII says its network plays a critical role in powering the circular economy. In 2023, GII recovered the value of more than 4.3 billion pounds of donated products, which supported the development of skills training, job placement, career advancement opportunities and other community-based services for more than 1.7 million people.

These initiatives are expected to continue to create jobs and additional revenue to fund Goodwill’s workforce programs and services. Revenue from the sale of donated goods stays in local communities to support job training, job placement and other essential services for community members who face obstacles to employment. Goodwill plans to recover the value in nonwearable textiles to continue support for its workforce development programs.

“With our 120-year legacy as a leader in circularity, Goodwill is positioning our local nonprofit enterprises at the forefront of creating systems for textile recycling and recovery,” GII President and CEO Steve Preston says in a news release about the collaboration. “Goodwill is looking to become a preferred partner of brands, retailers, technology companies, equipment providers and government and nongovernmental organizations.”