Walmart Foundation awards $1.2 million grant to Goodwill Circularity Initiative – Sourcing Journal

Every year Goodwill receives billions of pounds of donated goods, much of which is clothing. And while much of this clothing is sold in the organization’s stores, some items are considered ineligible for sale due to damage, wear or other defects.

To prevent clothing waste from ending up in landfills, Goodwill Industries has partnered with Accelerating Circularity to convert unsaleable textile donations into recycled raw materials. And the initiative just received an influx of capital when the Walmart Foundation awarded Goodwill a $1.2 million grant to fund the project.

The funding will enable Goodwill and Accelerating Circularity to develop infrastructure and systems to produce post-consumer textile raw materials that meet the recycler’s specifications and train workers for the sorting and raw materials process.

“This initiative with Goodwill Industries is an example of Accelerating Circularity’s unique role in creating new connections to mainstream the adoption of post-consumer textiles as raw materials,” said Sarah Coulter, Director of Operations and Special Projects at Accelerating Circularity. “Accelerating Circularity led the design and implementation of this program, providing expertise, program management, relationship building, and training and tool development at participating Goodwill locations.”

Twenty-five local Goodwill organizations are participating in the project, with Goodwill Industries of Tenneva Area, Goodwill of Finger Lakes, Goodwill Industries of Ontario Great Lakes and Goodwill Industries of West Michigan leading the initiative.

“We see an opportunity to advance our mission by supporting Goodwill’s efforts to convert textiles destined for recovery into higher-value recycled raw materials by sorting to specification, removing embellishments and other irritants, and aggregating sufficient quantities to “To support the full commercialization of textile-to-textile systems,” said Karla Magruder, president and founder of Accelerating Circularity, which is backed by Gap and Target.

The program’s first participants will model and test regional textile collaboration centers that can be replicated across Goodwill’s national network, as well as other organizations similar to Goodwill.

“Goodwill is focused on developing solutions for textiles that are scalable, circular and traceable, and we see textile-to-textile recycling as an important avenue for donations that are no longer sustainable and at the end of their life said Brittany Dickinson, director of sustainability at Goodwill Industries International. “Establishing regional goodwill collaborations for textile circular economy supports Goodwill’s role as a key player in the circular economy and is in line with our organizational sustainability strategy.”