USAgain is a for-profit textile recycling company operating in the United States. USAgain operates green and white collection bins in partnership with businesses, schools, and places of local government (bins are placed at these locations). The company was founded in Seattle in 1999 and has since expanded to over 10,000 collection sites in 15 states. USAgain is now headquartered in West Chicago, IL.
In 2015, USAgain collected 50 million pounds of textiles for reuse and recycling. [1] Clothing collected by USAgain is sent to graders and wholesalers, which then determine whether the clothing will be resold as secondhand clothing or recycled into new products [2] Like many other textile recycling organizations [3] In addition to collecting clothing via bins, USAgain has a partnership to collect shoes at 2013 Warrior Dash races in the contiguous U.S. [4] [5] USAgain has also hosted events to support schools, notably the Prom Goes Green dress giveaway event for high school students in Chicago. [6] The company has also supported schools through its Greenraiser program. [7]
USAgain operates 10 division offices: [8]
Savers Value Village Inc. is a publicly held, for-profit thrift store retailer headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, United States, offering second hand merchandise, with supermajority ownership by private equity firm Ares Management. An international company, Savers has more than 315 locations throughout the United States of America, Canada, and Australia, and receives its merchandise by paying money to non-profit organizations for donated clothing and household items. Savers is known as Value Village in the Pacific Northwest, the Baltimore metropolitan area, and most of Canada, and Village des Valeurs in Quebec. Chicago stores and some locations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area are under the name Unique. In Australia and other regions of the U.S., the stores share the corporation's name.
Used goods, also known as secondhand goods, are any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Used goods may also be handed down, especially among family or close friends, as a hand-me-down.
Tvind is the informal name of a confederation of private schools, humanitarian organizations, and businesses, founded as an alternative education school in Denmark circa 1970. The organization is controversial in Denmark, where it runs a number of schools primarily for troubled youth. Some former students and employees have described the organization and its controlling body, the Teachers Group, as a political cult.
In charitable organizations, a drive is a collection of items for people who need them, such as clothing, used items, books, canned food, cars, etc. Some drives ask that people go through their inventory, bag the items up, and put them in a giveaway bin, or charitable organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Salvation Army come to the house and pick them up. They then put the items in their thrift stores or, if they don't have any, sell them to thrift stores to raise money for their organization.
Nike Grind is Nike's collection of recycled materials that is composed of pre-consumer manufacturing scraps, recycled post-consumer shoes from the Reuse-A-Shoe program, and unsellable footwear. The purpose of Nike Grind is to eliminate waste in line with the tenets of sustainable fashion practices and close the loop on Nike's product lifecycle. Materials recycled include rubber, foam, fiber, leather and textile blends, which are separated and ground into granules.
Planet Aid is a non-profit organization headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. Its primary activity is the collection of clothing and other household items for resale and recycling. Founded in 1997 in Massachusetts, the organization has expanded down the East Coast of the United States and operates in 23 states, where it collects items through donation bins placed on sidewalks, parking lots, and other public areas.
Kerbside collection or curbside collection is a service provided to households, typically in urban and suburban areas, of collecting and disposing of household waste and recyclables. It is usually accomplished by personnel using specially built vehicles to pick up household waste in containers that are acceptable to, or prescribed by, the municipality and are placed on the kerb.
Waste sorting is the process by which waste is separated into different elements. Waste sorting can occur manually at the household and collected through curbside collection schemes, or automatically separated in materials recovery facilities or mechanical biological treatment systems. Hand sorting was the first method used in the history of waste sorting. Waste can also be sorted in a civic amenity site.
This article outlines the position and trends of recycling in Canada. Since the 1980s, most mid to large municipalities in most provinces have recycling programs, relying on curbside collection with either bins, boxes, or bags. These systems are not standardized, and the specific process differs for each province. Certain provinces have container-deposit systems in place for bottles, cans, and other beverage containers.
Rates of household recycling in Ireland have increased dramatically since the late 1990s. The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the agency with overall responsibility for environmental protection in Ireland and monitors rates of recycling in Ireland along with other measures of environmental conditions in Ireland. The EPA, along with Repak, the principal organisation for packaging recycling in Ireland, report on recycling rates each year. In 2012 Ireland’s municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling rate was 34%, while the rate of packaging recycling reached 79%. The amount of municipal waste generated per person per year in Ireland has fallen significantly in recent years. This figure remains above the European Union annual municipal waste average of 503 kg per person, however. Each local council in Ireland has considerable control over recycling, so recycling practices vary to some extent across the country. Most waste that is not recycled is disposed of in landfill sites.
In 2015, 43.5% of the United Kingdom's municipal waste was recycled, composted or broken down by anaerobic digestion. The majority of recycling undertaken in the United Kingdom is done by statutory authorities, although commercial and industrial waste is chiefly processed by private companies. Local Authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010. Recycling policy is devolved to the administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who set their own targets, but all statistics are reported to Eurostat.
Sustainable fashion is a term describing efforts within the fashion industry to reduce its environmental impacts, protect workers producing garments, and uphold animal welfare. Sustainability in fashion encompasses a wide range of factors, including cutting CO2 emissions, addressing overproduction, reducing pollution and waste, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that garment workers are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions.
Soles4Souls is a non-profit headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It receives shoe and clothing donations from individuals, community donation drives, and retailers. Then, Soles4Souls distributes the donated items to various programs around the world to help those in need. Items are repurposed either to provide relief or to help create jobs through the selling of clothes or shoes in developing countries.
Cradles to Crayons® (C2C®) is a non-profit organization that provides free clothes and other basic needs such as shoes, diapers, coats, and backpacks with school supplies to children living in homeless, poverty, and low-income situations for free. Cradles to Crayons began with its first Giving Factory® warehouse in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 2002. Cradles to Crayons expanded to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2006 and Chicago, Illinois, in 2016. In 2021, Cradles to Crayons launched its national online clothing donation platform Giving Factory Direct, serving children in NYC and San Francisco with direct donations from across the United States. Cradles to Crayons partners with corporations, community groups, service organizations, media outlets, sports teams, and other organizations in Chicagoland, Greater Philadelphia, Massachusetts, NYC, San Francisco, and across the U.S. Supporters donate clothing to clothes donation boxes. Then Cradles to Crayons volunteers sort and package the donations and provide them to children in need of clothing, shoes, diapers, and school supplies.
Cotton recycling is the process of converting cotton fabric into fibers that can be reused into other textile products.
Beautiful Store is a Korean nonprofit organization and charity shop. It was launched in 2002, following the model of the Oxfam shop, and now operates over 100 stores across Korea. The volunteer-run store collects donations of old or worn-out items like clothing, books, bags, kitchenware and appliances, and sells them to raise money for charity.
Gaia-Movement Living Earth Green World Action USA, Gaia Movement USA, or simply Gaia, is a charitable organization based in Chicago, Illinois which collects used clothing for resale ("recycling") in the United States and developing countries.
Recycling in Australia is a widespread, and comprehensive part of waste management in Australia, with 60% of all waste collected being recycled. Recycling is collected from households, commercial businesses, industries and construction. Despite its prominence, household recycling makes up only a small part (13%) of Australia's total recycling. It generally occurs through kerbside recycling collections such as the commingled recycling bin and food/garden organics recycling bin, drop-off and take-back programs, and various other schemes. Collection and management of household recycling typically falls to local councils, with private contractors collecting commercial, industrial and construction recycling. In addition to local council regulations, legislation and overarching policies are implemented and managed by the state and federal governments.
Texaid-Textilverwertungs-AG (TEXAID) is a commercial company for the recycling of used clothing, 50% of which is owned by the German Böschen family, 50% by a consortium of the Swiss Red Cross, Winterhilfe Schweiz, Solidar Suisse, Caritas Switzerland, Kolping Schweiz and the Swiss Protestant Church Aid Organisation (HEKS). Based in Schattdorf, Switzerland, the company is one of the largest organisations in Europe for the collection, sorting and recycling of used textiles.
Suay Sew Shop is a sustainable clothing and accessory manufacturing company based in Frogtown, Los Angeles. Through upcycling of textiles, Suay reclaims used garments and uses them to create new items.