HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOLIDAY SALE! Get 25% off all TBBs + free expedited shipping on 3 and 6-packs!
HOW WE RECYCLE
CLOTHING & TEXTILES
Why doES 85% of USED clothing end up in the trash*
The current system is broken. Over the past 20 years, consumption has surged by 400%**, leaving us drowning in excess stuff. While there have been some advancements in clothing reuse and recycling, progress hasn’t kept pace with the sheer volume of consumption, and a scalable solution for efficiently collecting garments remains elusive.
Donation organizations and resale platforms are overwhelmed with more products than they can manage. Meanwhile, responsibly handling used clothing in the U.S. is often more costly and complex than exporting it. As a result, much of it ends up in landfills or is baled and shipped overseas without proper sorting or consideration.
Enter Trashie.
* Source: NIST
**Source: The True Cost Documentary
THE TAKE BACK BAG mAKES RECYCLING EASY
The Take Back Bag™ is our way of collecting unwanted clothing and textiles directly from people’s homes – it’s fun, easy, and rewarding. Our innovative sorting and grading system takes it from there, weeding out the trash and getting over 95% of the unwanted clothing we collect to the next right place.
Our goal is to become everyone's default choice for clothing recycling. When we work together at scale, it’s a huge step forward for circularity, igniting the systems change we all want to see in the world.
ONSHORE PRECISION SORTING
All unwanted items are collected and then transported to our facility in North America. Precision sorting and grading is essential to ensuring your items are directed to their optimal next use. Our detailed grading system categorizes each item into one of 253 specific grades based on factors like quality, category, seasonality, and material.
This meticulous process allows us to accurately assess what we collect before it moves forward, ensuring that mixed bales with waste are never blindly exported. By enhancing both reuse and recycling efficiency, we maximize the value of every item and remove any non-recyclable waste right from the start.
DOUBLING THE NUMBER OF TIMES A GARMENT IS WORN REDUCES ITS ASSOCIATED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY 44%
(Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation/MCKINSEY)MAXIMIZing reuse
If an item can still fulfill its original purpose, the most sustainable choice is to find it a new home. This minimizes the environmental impact associated with recycling, such as water usage, energy consumption, and shipping. By extending the life of an item, we reduce waste and also honor the resources and energy invested in its creation, ensuring maximum value is derived from its use.
Much like the fashion industry, the reuse system thrives on categorization. By grouping items into specific categories, we can efficiently match them with the right recipients who need them. Once categorized, there’s enough of a single type of item to make finding a suitable home feasible.
For example, we send warm coats to Eastern Europe during winter, durable t-shirts to field workers in Southeast Asia, and sweaters to South America during their colder months. This approach ensures that each item finds its best next use, tailored to the needs of its destination.
RECYCLING INNOVATION
For items that do not meet quality standards for reuse, we pull the right materials out for recycling and send them to downcycling and fiber-to-fiber partners in the US, Central America and Europe. Downcycling includes industrial rags, industrial insulation, carpet padding, pet bed filling, punching bag filling and the list goes on. The mix constantly changes depending on what we collect.
Why is fiber-to-fiber recycling such a small piece of the puzzle? Current capacity and technology for this are still very limited. Many recycling processes require 98% cotton or 98% polyester which is difficult to identify and isolate in post-consumer waste.
While most recyclers today are working predominantly with post-industrial waste, Trashie is working hard to address the post-consumer waste side. We send cashmere to Italy for recycling. We are actively running mechanical recycling tests on cotton (check out our Cotton Fabric Scrap Take Back Bag). And we are testing and building feedstock strategies for leading recycling innovators like Renewcell, Ambercycle, Circ, and Evrnu.
We test new fiber identification processes and are exploring automation where it might catalyze better sorting. We are deeply committed to the circular economy and while there is no one perfect solution, we are here for it all, every day with our partners, building something better together.
BUILDING A system that works
We’re on a mission to make recycling clothes simple and impactful. No matter where you shop or what you buy, together we can tackle the challenge of what happens to clothing once it’s no longer needed. Each week, we process 100,000 pounds of clothing and textiles—over 5 million pounds per year. Of these, 70% are reusable, and 20-25% are suitable for recycling, ensuring that as much as possible is kept out of landfills and put back into the system.
Why customers love cleaning out their closets with The Take Back Bag
“Love the Take Back Bag! This will be my third one. It fits a large amount of textiles, so I can really pack it in with all the items that I can no longer donate.”
“I got my first bag, stuffed it full of worn out t-shirts, printed the shipping label, and dropped it off at the post office. It was so easy, I ordered 2 more bags. I used my closet cash to get Zero Waste laundry sheets. They work great. Everything should be this easy peasy.”
“What a delightfully easy way to recycle. I was getting a little weary of donating my clothes at the local thrift shop, watching them dumped into heaps and heaps of other donations.”
DO GOOD, HAVE FUN, GET REWARDS
BUY A TAKE BACK BAG TODAY AND GET 30 IN TRASHIECASHTM
REDEEM IT FOR EXCLUSIVE REWARDS
