Jan 27, 2022
If you’ve ever spent a day volunteering in a charity shop which trades on donated stock, you’ll be familiar with the “joy” of opening bags of clothing hoping to find something you can immediately price up and put on the shop floor. Only to discover a sack of broken bras and old undies, which immediately go into the rag pile.
Enter Parade, a startup in the US. They’ve launched a recycling program for underwear from any brand. Anyone can request a free shipping label and biodegradable bag, which are then sent to TerraCycle to be sorted, cleaned, and processed into materials that can be used in things like housing insulation and bedding.
So What?
Those who participate get a 20% coupon to use on Parade products. Cami Téllez, Parade’s founder and CEO, says this is an important step toward making the industry more sustainable, although the ultimate goal is to create a system where underwear can be recycled back into underwear in a fully circular model.
During the pandemic the bottom fell out of the rag market, as countries refused to accept shipments from the UK. Combine this with the drive towards lower carbon footprints and sustainability, and shipping our unsaleable fabric halfway around the world for processing suddenly seems much less appealing. Is there an opportunity for a charity venture that mirror’s Parade’s approach? We think so.