April 23, 2025 • 27 mins
When wildfires hit Los Angeles in January, people did what they always do in a crisis: They stepped in to help. And many of them donated clothes. Lots and lots of clothes. Volunteers were quickly overwhelmed as bags of clothes began piling up at relief centers.
“What happens is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities and the community to help, because it's a mismatch of what the community and the city needs versus what's being offered,” says chief strategy officer Annie Gullingsrud at Trashie, an organization that worked to recirculate those donations and keep them from the landfill. “When these things happen, we just need to know that what we're offering is actual, informed help—not just perceived wishful thinking.”
As donation centers struggled to handle tens of thousands of pounds of clothing, sustainable fashion initiatives and recyclers stepped up. Their initiatives are part of a larger effort to ensure that reusable and recyclable clothing doesn't end up in landfills.
You can also read our Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow Maylin Tu's original Next City article on textile waste recycling after the L.A. wildfires here.
“What happens is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities and the community to help, because it's a mismatch of what the community and the city needs versus what's being offered,” says chief strategy officer Annie Gullingsrud at Trashie, an organization that worked to recirculate those donations and keep them from the landfill. “When these things happen, we just need to know that what we're offering is actual, informed help—not just perceived wishful thinking.”
As donation centers struggled to handle tens of thousands of pounds of clothing, sustainable fashion initiatives and recyclers stepped up. Their initiatives are part of a larger effort to ensure that reusable and recyclable clothing doesn't end up in landfills.
You can also read our Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow Maylin Tu's original Next City article on textile waste recycling after the L.A. wildfires here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
One thing I'd love about humans and Americans is they
want to help. That's a good sign people want to
help other people. And what happens is the help that's
being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities in
the community to help because it's a mismatch of what
the community in the city needs versus what's being offered.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. When wildfires hit
Los Angeles in January, people did what they always do
in a crisis. They stepped into help, and many of
them donated clothes, lots and lots of clothes, so much
(00:56):
so that the donations quickly overwhelmed belief centers bags of
closed or piled up. Volunteers did not have the capacity
to sort through them, and a lot of what showed
up wasn't what the fire victims needed. Today, we're talking
about what happened next and what lessons we can learn
from it, not only for responding to climate disasters, but
also in our everyday lives as we donate with the
(01:16):
goal of helping each other out and protecting our planet.
We'll talk with any Gulling's route from Trashy. They were
one of several organizations tapped to sort, recycle, and redistribute
clothing after the fires, and they work on problems like
this every day. But first let's start with reporter Meelan
two who was also on the ground helping sort donations
and saw the issue up close. She wrote about it
(01:36):
for Next City back in January. So you wrote this
story about how the Sunday right after the wildfires, you
were sorting through piles of clothing that was donated alongside
other volunteers, and you saw that the donation hubs ended
up with more used clothing than they could realistically pass
(01:59):
on to wildfire survivors. So tell us about that experience
and why you wrote about it.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
That was something that became clear really quickly. I think
a lot of people were mobilized. People were instantly like,
how can I help, what can I do? What can
I donate? And there were so much push to just
do something, and you kind of saw that there were
all these donations happening at these hubs and they just
received so many, just like trash bags full of clothes.
(02:28):
So I volunteered at this this place called the Kaleidoscope,
and they were just inundated with donations and I do
their messaging group. After that, I was just getting all
these messages, what are we going to do with these clothes?
We need to find someone somewhere to donate these clothes.
They're asking for volunteers to call and find a place
to place these clothes. So just became clear that there's
like this issue where they had all these donations and
(02:50):
I just didn't know what to do with it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
The palisades and eat and fires forced over one hundred
thousand people to evacuate their homes, and mutual aid groups
and everyday citizens leapt into action, setting up donation hubs
for clothing and more, including food, masks, and hygiene products.
The first priority for sustainability groups and recyclers that stepped
up like Black pearl Sway, soa shop and trashy is
(03:13):
getting items to the victims who need them. But at
least when it came to clothing, a lot was left over.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh wow, yeah, I think it was like a huge
crisis for a lot of these places that were taking donations,
Like eventually they had to say stop donating, you know,
stop bringing us stuff, like we're not taking anything. I
think at first they probably ended up taking it to
places that we're still accepting donations. And eventually they tapped
into these organizations and the startup called Trashy that were
(03:44):
kind of working on recycling clothing and making sure it
doesn't end up in the landfill, it doesn't end up
getting sent to other countries, sort of like trying to
thoughtfully repurpose things. And I think it's just this story
that really brought home like how much labor is involved
in all of this, that there's a cost and a
value that goes into repurposing items and making sure that
(04:06):
they just don't go in the trash. So for me,
it's like when I donate something with their store, I'm
not thinking like I'm creating a cost burden on someone else.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
There are going to be more climate related crisises, more
natural disasters. Did the activists have anything to say about
what they thought was the right thing to do when
a crisis like this happens again?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I think it was really just trying to be more thoughtful.
When you're donating thing, think about like what I want
this if I were in that situation, Like would I
want this item of clothing? You know, think about the
labor that is required to sort through your stuff, think
about the labor that's required to repurpose it, and like
ask yourself, is this really the right move at this time?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
You don't want your stuff to go to waste. You
don't want it to think that it's going to get
thrown away. And at the same time, you're like, oh,
people have lost everything, they've lost their homes, they've lost
everything that they own. Of course they're going to want this,
you know, item of clothing that werechase like five years
ago and totally forgot about. But there isn't necessarily that
like one to one match of like what people donated
and what people actually needed. And so people were donating
(05:11):
some items that I saw when we were like staring
through clothes, it was like very much like going out
kind of outfits, stuff that you would probably not wear
in your normal everyday life. And so I saw this
like shaming kind of happen, like stop donating trash, Like
why are you donating this? How dare you assume that
a wildfire survivor would want this? Can't you see that
they've lost everything? I understand that too, but I just
I don't know if the's shaming In my opinion, I
(05:31):
don't think it's like that helpful. So I think it's
more about bringing that awareness and saying like things don't
just disappear, Like once you buy something and you kind
of want to offload it, you got to think about,
like where's it going to end up? And is it
actually having the intended effect of you trying to do
this kind of good deed.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
At the Santa and Nita Racetrack, bags of clothing stretched
out for hundreds of feet. Volunteers ran out of time,
and the city was out of options. That's when Trashy
got the call. Any Gung's rude tells us what happened
next and why she believes we need a better system
for all of our stuff. That's after the break welcome back.
(06:13):
So what actually happens when you donate your clothes? Who
sorts all of it? Who decides what gets reused, recycled
or tossed out? And how can we build a better
system in the aftermath of the fires, the Santa need
A racetrack became a donation center, and like everywhere else,
the clothing started to pile up. Volunteers were doing their best,
but by the time Trashy got the call, there were
(06:34):
boxes stretching hundreds of feet and only days left to
clear it all out. Here's any going through the chief
strategy officer at Trashy.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
There was an organizer who was receiving donations and helping
the community, and so people were just coming in and
dropping off stuff and it just was accumulating and accumulating
and accumulating. And we were getting calls about Santa Anita too,
people who said you got to get there, Trashy, you
got to get there. They need to clear out by Friday.
You need to get there. So on that Friday, what
(07:10):
we did was we rolled in just to set the
stage a little bit. Is they were for not having
an organization truly there taking charge of everything. There was
a lot of organization, you know, and there were fifty
to one hundred volunteers. There was actually quite beautiful and
the community had gotten together to make donations for people
(07:33):
who needed them, and what was left there were boxes
and boxes and boxes and boxes of clothing and several
hundred feet worth. And so what we did was we
arranged a truck of fifty three foot truck to show
up and we had about fifty to one hundred volunteers
(07:56):
throughout the day coming in to put stuff in boxes
and trashy bags to load up the truck so then
we could take it to our facility and responsibly sort
through it and go through our sorting and grading and
recycling process.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And my understanding is trash he's able to keep ninety
five percent of what you end up bringing to your
facility in Texas, they don't end up in the landfill.
So what's the difference between what you're doing and what
others are doing.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so our goal is not just to keep unnecessary
stuff out of the landfall, but it's also to recirculate
what's already there. That's our goal, right, Something that doesn't
need to end up in the trash, that has more
life and use left in it, tould be recirculated. And
that's essentially our job is to keep products in use.
(08:44):
And so what we do is our customers who are
recycling with us, we have a sophisticated system that can
handle sort of the range of all those different types
of things, from those old stinky sneakers and sucks to
the dress that doesn't fit anymore. Right, And so what
we do is we sort it in grating means to
categorize it. So we sort it and categorize it by
(09:07):
product type, product condition, Okay, and then we go through
that process and from there, seventy percent is reusable, meaning
that it can go back out into the world. Around
twenty percent twenty to twenty five percent it can't be reused,
so we recycle for parts. Right. What makes us so
(09:28):
special is we can handle the range of the stuff.
And so that's what makes us so special. Not only
can we take all of your stuff, we're equipped to
go through it and to say, oh, this one's good
for that, or this one's good for that that's a
pet bed and go through all the possible scenarios and
solutions to ensure that that stuff can get recirculated.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Would you say it's a common problem or that you've
worked with the other sort of disasters where people are
donating in response to something that's happened, and the reality
is there's too much to actually serve that group, right,
so yeah, they are the things you donate ending up
someplace else. I mean, they're still being used, but they're
not being used by people in LA for example.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, you're distinctly speaking to what happens when there's a
disaster and there's too much donations.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So our partners have experienced this before, and our partner
on the textile side experience this around Katrina, and then
our partner, the UPS Foundation on the logistics side have
experienced this multiple times. And the example they brought up
(10:45):
was a bottle of water. So what happens here is
and one thing I love about humans and Americans is
they want to help, which is which that's a good
sign people want to help other people. And what weapons
is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability
for those cities in the community to help because it's
(11:07):
a mismatch of what the community in the city needs
versus what's being offered. Right, And so what happened in
LA is the reason why we got the call was
that these organizations couldn't give the community members and those
impacted by the fires exactly what they needed because they
were like clogged with stuff that they need to be
(11:29):
removed so they could help the people who needed help.
They needed they needed food, they needed basic essentials, they
needed money cash. Right, So this happens during disasters, and
it's sort of like it tells us a few things.
The one thing again it says to us is like, oh,
this is awesome. People want to help. That's great. The
(11:53):
second thing it says is they have a lot of
stuff that actually just need to know what to do
with it. You know, people know I shouldn't put this
in the trash. I needed to go somewhere. That's excellent.
And the third thing we need to do, So that's
number two, and that's just in general. The third thing
we need to do is just make sure and send
the message that when these types of disasters happening happen,
(12:16):
and they will because we live on planet Earth, it happens,
it will happen. Is that when these things happen, we
just need to know that what we're offering is actual,
informed help, not just perceived wishful thinking.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point. I really
take your point about there being a mismatch, right, because
people are being genuine and wanting to help, and they're like,
this is the thing I can do right now, and
they think of donating clothes is one thing they could do. Yeah, Drash,
you put out a social media posts back in January
that got a lot of attention. That was the big
statement to start the post was stop donating to the
(12:52):
LA fires. They don't have the infrastructure of labor to
sort in story or trash. Yeah, and that's really what
you're talking about. There is like this mist match right
between what you have around your house and what people
need is not necessarily the same thing.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
This is all about matchmaking. This is all of the
industry that we work within is one hundred percent about matchmaking, right, Like,
what is this thing that you need and what is
the right time? This is one hundred percent about that.
So when it came to LA, we lifted out all
of that stuff, We started and graded it, and now
(13:27):
we're making it available for when those organizations needed. So
some of those organizations had reached out and said we're ready,
but it's at the point where the demand matches the supply,
you know.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I feel like the wildfires were just one example of
us not knowing what happens after we donate something, right like, yeah,
this is happening all the time, all over the country,
people are bringing things into their local goodwill or they're
responding to try to help in these types of crisis.
What is it that trashy exists to fix about that
whole process?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, So the way that we fix that whole process
is we can find a solution for all of your stuff,
not just some of it, and then we're going to
show you how we do it. We're going to bring
transparency and traceability to the process. So we certainly advocate
for charity organizations, and I have served one for many,
(14:22):
many years. I also know that the primary purpose of
that organization is not centered around figuring out what to
do with the stuff. It really is centered around extracting
the most amount of value that they can to serve
their mission. Right, So it's just a different purpose. What
Trashy does is we make it really convenient for our
users to give everything to us, and we're going to
(14:44):
say to you, hey, we know exactly what to do
with it, and we're going to make sure that happens,
and we're going to show you how we do it.
So the way that this works is there's plenty solutions
these days, and I think customers don't always know what
those are, but there's plenty of potential partners out there
and communities and cultures out there who if something doesn't
(15:05):
work in the US, like if there's not a market for,
for example, secondhand undergarments, there are in other parts of
the world. So we really grow the intelligence to know
where we can continue to recirculate. And if we're seeing
a large portion of stuff that we don't know what
to do with, we're going to find a partner to
make sure it doesn't go to landfill. So our primary
(15:27):
purpose again is just distinctly to figure out what to
do with your stuff. And I think that I'm going
to lead into another thing if you wouldn't mind, because
I think this is a great interlude into the fact
that what I saw on the ground. One of my
favorite things is to go through people's stuff. It's just
like I love, like love going through people's stuff. And
(15:50):
I think that it just doesn't take long, you know,
to go through people's stuff to come up with the
sort of insights as a user and as a person
who's donating, like it just you can see you can
see it right there. And so much of what I
had saw had seen in Santa Anita. So we collected
twenty five thousand just from that one day event at
(16:12):
the racetrack, and then we collected another twenty five thousand pounds.
Actually it was more like thirty five thousand pounds from
different organ different pickups in the LA area, so totally
between fifty to sixty thousand pounds. What I saw is
people do love their stuff. And I think that in
(16:35):
this consumption culture that we talk about a lot, and
I recognize it's there. There's an increase in production. I
recognize that. And something I didn't totally have my eyes
on until these events is how well loved people keep.
They really loved their stuff. You know, there were like
(16:58):
well loved running sneakers and T shirts and just really
and when I say well loved, I mean worn. And
what that led us to understand is that people just
don't know what to do with their stuff. And I
think they may be questioning whether it makes the most
(17:19):
sense to just unload at goodwill, because a lot of
people do that. Maybe that just doesn't make the most sense.
And now they're sitting on this pile of stuff that
they don't know what to do with. And now there
came a time where they could quote unquote like help
people or so they thought right to help people, to
give them their stuff and to unload something that may
(17:41):
have been sitting in their physical consciousness and their physical environment.
You put these two things together and you have this
unloading of stuff that's really well loved. That's what I saw.
All they need is a container to put their stuff,
like a recycling bin. And that gave me such assurance
knowing that Trashy is on the right track.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
So let's continue going down this track. If one of
the bigger problems is that people don't know what to
do with their stuff, Trashy thinks the answer to that
one is simple, make it easier. After the break, Annie
shares how they're building a system for reuse and recycling
that actually works for consumers, for nonprofits, and for the planet.
(18:29):
Welcome back. We've heard what happens when donation centers are
overwhelmed and how they call Trashy to help deal with
the influx. Now Annie explains how we avoid that kind
of crisis in the first place by making reuse and
recycling easier, more accessible, and maybe even rewarding.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
There's not an access problem. There's an easy access problem. Right,
But when it comes to recycling, and again I want
to define when I say the term recycling when it
comes to things like fashion and that has two things together,
which is reuse and separating for component parts. It's those
two things together and knowing the distinction when that one
(19:11):
or the other happens. Right. And so what trashy provides
is the easy and convenient access. This is literally your
Amazon for second hand, like for second hand or recycling,
this is your Amazon, right. We're going to make it
easy for you to take that pile, no matter what
it looks like, to send it to us, and we
will reward you for it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
So in the back end, you're being trusted to either
reuse or recycle these materials. People can set aside those
fears that everything I'm putting in the recycling is just
going into the trash somewhere. But on the consumer side,
there's other things going on to help incentivize people to
actually recycle reuse their materials. So talk some more about that.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, this is the most I think the coolest part
of the process because what trashy does is we invite
you into a community because you're a part of our
community of people doing this amazing necessary thing for the planet.
We're giving you special deals just by being here, and
those deals are for your regular how you would regularly shop,
(20:18):
So like it's not necessarily for apparel, it's just here's
some deals. They're two experiences. They're to food, they're to travel,
So it's not necessarily a one to one connection of
like give us clothes, buy more clothes. It's not that
at all. So we're giving you special deal just by
being a part of the community. And then users and
(20:41):
super users of our system are getting access to loyalty points. Essentially,
they're not loyalty points, they're recycling points, right, They're called
trashy cash. And then they get to exchange those points
for gift guards to places that they would normally shop.
And again I'm using the word shop as a very
sort of gnostic word for like a very lifestyle. It's
(21:04):
like get yourself a coffee, get yourself a lunch, go travel,
here you go. So it's it becomes more of a
bigger system of lifestyle. So incorporating recycle into that bigger
system of your life.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So we have a lot of nonprofit organizations that listen
to the show, and we always ask like on their behalf,
what would they want to know about this? Like you
mentioned there's three hundred I think you've called them clients
or something like that, partners that you work with. Are
there opportunities for organizations to become partners? How should they
be thinking about working with you all?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's always opportunities to partner, and
it sort of depends on where they're at in a system.
So sometimes we partner with organizations where they actually offer
the take back bag, some nonprofit organizations and some profit
profit organizations that just offer the bag because they want
(22:03):
their community to easily participate in a system. We have
the e waste box and the take back bag. The
beauty behind either of these approaches is it's tangible, so
you can give it out to your community and then
all of the shipping, all of that is bundled into
the experience when you're engaging with the bag, so it's
(22:25):
easy for organizations to hand these out. Another opportunity is
and again it depends on the organization itself. As we
also often partner with organizations on the reuse and recycling
and too, we're always growing our network there. So like
for example, there's some in the LA area doing fiber
to fiber recycling, and so we're setting up networks of
(22:48):
giving these organizations the actual apparel that they need to
feed their system. We are in this business and our
team is in this business to provide a service to
the community and the planet, and we hold that so
it's embodied within us, and so everything that we do
(23:10):
is with an intention to ensure that it's not going
to end up somewhere where it's not being used.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So you've been there since the inception. Just looking back
over all that time, what's one moment where you felt
really proud of what you were doing or you knew
that it was working.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, you know, going back to how we started talking
as being on the ground in Santa Anita was personally
very moving for me and a reminder of why I
do this work. And I think I was just just
(23:50):
really moved to tears by humanity, you know, and the
people who also care about what we do, who also
care about it and we're willing to show up and help,
you know, and they were just such kind people who
truly believed in what it is we did, and they
(24:13):
just learned some of people knew about us and some
people just got on board right away, and I knew
and the way that we were able to jump in
within two days of getting the call right and when
I say the call, I mean the calls, the many
hundreds of calls. We knew that the system that we
(24:34):
had set up is scalable and can support an entire country.
We knew that we could step in and support one
of the biggest cities in the United States. We knew it,
and we were able to pull it off in two
weeks with grace. And that's when I knew that this
is it, you know, and I'm so grateful to be
(24:56):
a part of it again. The people who showed up.
We had a truck driver who lives on the East
Coast who was delivering a fifty three foot truck load
to our facility. He jumped in. He just was sweating,
and he was there because he knew what was important
and just and he's like, I'm just doing this for you,
(25:18):
And that was just I knew. I knew we had arrived.
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah, sometimes it feels like you're alone and then one
hundred people show up to help you do something and
you're like, I'm not alone, and.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You get to see the impact. You know, I'm behind
my computer all day on the phone, and so you know,
just getting to see the impact. It's just such a
great physical and human reminder of why this work matters
so much.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Well, thanks for doing it. Thinks so much.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's my distinct pleasure and I think why I was
brought to this planet.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, a
show about change makers and their stories. Together we can
spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
Thank you for listening this week. Thank you to our
guest Danny Gollngksrude, chief strategy officer at Traggy. Thank you
to Next City's mailand two for her reporting on this story.
Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show producer is
Maggie Bowles, Our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson, and I'm
(26:25):
Lucas Crinley, executive director for Next City. By the way,
Next City is a news organization with a nonprofit model.
If you like what we're doing here, please consider pitching
in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot org slash
membership to make a donation. We'd love to hear any
feedback from our listeners, please feel free to email us
at info at Neexcity dot org and if you haven't already,
subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or
(26:47):
anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
One thing I'd love about humans and Americans is they
want to help. That's a good sign people want to
help other people. And what happens is the help that's
being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities in
the community to help because it's a mismatch of what
the community in the city needs versus what's being offered.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. When wildfires hit
Los Angeles in January, people did what they always do
in a crisis. They stepped into help, and many of
them donated clothes, lots and lots of clothes, so much
(00:56):
so that the donations quickly overwhelmed belief centers bags of
closed or piled up. Volunteers did not have the capacity
to sort through them, and a lot of what showed
up wasn't what the fire victims needed. Today, we're talking
about what happened next and what lessons we can learn
from it, not only for responding to climate disasters, but
also in our everyday lives as we donate with the
(01:16):
goal of helping each other out and protecting our planet.
We'll talk with any Gulling's route from Trashy. They were
one of several organizations tapped to sort, recycle, and redistribute
clothing after the fires, and they work on problems like
this every day. But first let's start with reporter Meelan
two who was also on the ground helping sort donations
and saw the issue up close. She wrote about it
(01:36):
for Next City back in January. So you wrote this
story about how the Sunday right after the wildfires, you
were sorting through piles of clothing that was donated alongside
other volunteers, and you saw that the donation hubs ended
up with more used clothing than they could realistically pass
(01:59):
on to wildfire survivors. So tell us about that experience
and why you wrote about it.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
That was something that became clear really quickly. I think
a lot of people were mobilized. People were instantly like,
how can I help, what can I do? What can
I donate? And there were so much push to just
do something, and you kind of saw that there were
all these donations happening at these hubs and they just
received so many, just like trash bags full of clothes.
(02:28):
So I volunteered at this this place called the Kaleidoscope,
and they were just inundated with donations and I do
their messaging group. After that, I was just getting all
these messages, what are we going to do with these clothes?
We need to find someone somewhere to donate these clothes.
They're asking for volunteers to call and find a place
to place these clothes. So just became clear that there's
like this issue where they had all these donations and
(02:50):
I just didn't know what to do with it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
The palisades and eat and fires forced over one hundred
thousand people to evacuate their homes, and mutual aid groups
and everyday citizens leapt into action, setting up donation hubs
for clothing and more, including food, masks, and hygiene products.
The first priority for sustainability groups and recyclers that stepped
up like Black pearl Sway, soa shop and trashy is
(03:13):
getting items to the victims who need them. But at
least when it came to clothing, a lot was left over.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh wow, yeah, I think it was like a huge
crisis for a lot of these places that were taking donations,
Like eventually they had to say stop donating, you know,
stop bringing us stuff, like we're not taking anything. I
think at first they probably ended up taking it to
places that we're still accepting donations. And eventually they tapped
into these organizations and the startup called Trashy that were
(03:44):
kind of working on recycling clothing and making sure it
doesn't end up in the landfill, it doesn't end up
getting sent to other countries, sort of like trying to
thoughtfully repurpose things. And I think it's just this story
that really brought home like how much labor is involved
in all of this, that there's a cost and a
value that goes into repurposing items and making sure that
(04:06):
they just don't go in the trash. So for me,
it's like when I donate something with their store, I'm
not thinking like I'm creating a cost burden on someone else.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
There are going to be more climate related crisises, more
natural disasters. Did the activists have anything to say about
what they thought was the right thing to do when
a crisis like this happens again?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I think it was really just trying to be more thoughtful.
When you're donating thing, think about like what I want
this if I were in that situation, Like would I
want this item of clothing? You know, think about the
labor that is required to sort through your stuff, think
about the labor that's required to repurpose it, and like
ask yourself, is this really the right move at this time?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
You don't want your stuff to go to waste. You
don't want it to think that it's going to get
thrown away. And at the same time, you're like, oh,
people have lost everything, they've lost their homes, they've lost
everything that they own. Of course they're going to want this,
you know, item of clothing that werechase like five years
ago and totally forgot about. But there isn't necessarily that
like one to one match of like what people donated
and what people actually needed. And so people were donating
(05:11):
some items that I saw when we were like staring
through clothes, it was like very much like going out
kind of outfits, stuff that you would probably not wear
in your normal everyday life. And so I saw this
like shaming kind of happen, like stop donating trash, Like
why are you donating this? How dare you assume that
a wildfire survivor would want this? Can't you see that
they've lost everything? I understand that too, but I just
I don't know if the's shaming In my opinion, I
(05:31):
don't think it's like that helpful. So I think it's
more about bringing that awareness and saying like things don't
just disappear, Like once you buy something and you kind
of want to offload it, you got to think about,
like where's it going to end up? And is it
actually having the intended effect of you trying to do
this kind of good deed.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
At the Santa and Nita Racetrack, bags of clothing stretched
out for hundreds of feet. Volunteers ran out of time,
and the city was out of options. That's when Trashy
got the call. Any Gung's rude tells us what happened
next and why she believes we need a better system
for all of our stuff. That's after the break welcome back.
(06:13):
So what actually happens when you donate your clothes? Who
sorts all of it? Who decides what gets reused, recycled
or tossed out? And how can we build a better
system in the aftermath of the fires, the Santa need
A racetrack became a donation center, and like everywhere else,
the clothing started to pile up. Volunteers were doing their best,
but by the time Trashy got the call, there were
(06:34):
boxes stretching hundreds of feet and only days left to
clear it all out. Here's any going through the chief
strategy officer at Trashy.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
There was an organizer who was receiving donations and helping
the community, and so people were just coming in and
dropping off stuff and it just was accumulating and accumulating
and accumulating. And we were getting calls about Santa Anita too,
people who said you got to get there, Trashy, you
got to get there. They need to clear out by Friday.
You need to get there. So on that Friday, what
(07:10):
we did was we rolled in just to set the
stage a little bit. Is they were for not having
an organization truly there taking charge of everything. There was
a lot of organization, you know, and there were fifty
to one hundred volunteers. There was actually quite beautiful and
the community had gotten together to make donations for people
(07:33):
who needed them, and what was left there were boxes
and boxes and boxes and boxes of clothing and several
hundred feet worth. And so what we did was we
arranged a truck of fifty three foot truck to show
up and we had about fifty to one hundred volunteers
(07:56):
throughout the day coming in to put stuff in boxes
and trashy bags to load up the truck so then
we could take it to our facility and responsibly sort
through it and go through our sorting and grading and
recycling process.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And my understanding is trash he's able to keep ninety
five percent of what you end up bringing to your
facility in Texas, they don't end up in the landfill.
So what's the difference between what you're doing and what
others are doing.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so our goal is not just to keep unnecessary
stuff out of the landfall, but it's also to recirculate
what's already there. That's our goal, right, Something that doesn't
need to end up in the trash, that has more
life and use left in it, tould be recirculated. And
that's essentially our job is to keep products in use.
(08:44):
And so what we do is our customers who are
recycling with us, we have a sophisticated system that can
handle sort of the range of all those different types
of things, from those old stinky sneakers and sucks to
the dress that doesn't fit anymore. Right, And so what
we do is we sort it in grating means to
categorize it. So we sort it and categorize it by
(09:07):
product type, product condition, Okay, and then we go through
that process and from there, seventy percent is reusable, meaning
that it can go back out into the world. Around
twenty percent twenty to twenty five percent it can't be reused,
so we recycle for parts. Right. What makes us so
(09:28):
special is we can handle the range of the stuff.
And so that's what makes us so special. Not only
can we take all of your stuff, we're equipped to
go through it and to say, oh, this one's good
for that, or this one's good for that that's a
pet bed and go through all the possible scenarios and
solutions to ensure that that stuff can get recirculated.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Would you say it's a common problem or that you've
worked with the other sort of disasters where people are
donating in response to something that's happened, and the reality
is there's too much to actually serve that group, right,
so yeah, they are the things you donate ending up
someplace else. I mean, they're still being used, but they're
not being used by people in LA for example.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, you're distinctly speaking to what happens when there's a
disaster and there's too much donations.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So our partners have experienced this before, and our partner
on the textile side experience this around Katrina, and then
our partner, the UPS Foundation on the logistics side have
experienced this multiple times. And the example they brought up
(10:45):
was a bottle of water. So what happens here is
and one thing I love about humans and Americans is
they want to help, which is which that's a good
sign people want to help other people. And what weapons
is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability
for those cities in the community to help because it's
(11:07):
a mismatch of what the community in the city needs
versus what's being offered. Right, And so what happened in
LA is the reason why we got the call was
that these organizations couldn't give the community members and those
impacted by the fires exactly what they needed because they
were like clogged with stuff that they need to be
(11:29):
removed so they could help the people who needed help.
They needed they needed food, they needed basic essentials, they
needed money cash. Right, So this happens during disasters, and
it's sort of like it tells us a few things.
The one thing again it says to us is like, oh,
this is awesome. People want to help. That's great. The
(11:53):
second thing it says is they have a lot of
stuff that actually just need to know what to do
with it. You know, people know I shouldn't put this
in the trash. I needed to go somewhere. That's excellent.
And the third thing we need to do, So that's
number two, and that's just in general. The third thing
we need to do is just make sure and send
the message that when these types of disasters happening happen,
(12:16):
and they will because we live on planet Earth, it happens,
it will happen. Is that when these things happen, we
just need to know that what we're offering is actual,
informed help, not just perceived wishful thinking.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point. I really
take your point about there being a mismatch, right, because
people are being genuine and wanting to help, and they're like,
this is the thing I can do right now, and
they think of donating clothes is one thing they could do. Yeah, Drash,
you put out a social media posts back in January
that got a lot of attention. That was the big
statement to start the post was stop donating to the
(12:52):
LA fires. They don't have the infrastructure of labor to
sort in story or trash. Yeah, and that's really what
you're talking about. There is like this mist match right
between what you have around your house and what people
need is not necessarily the same thing.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
This is all about matchmaking. This is all of the
industry that we work within is one hundred percent about matchmaking, right, Like,
what is this thing that you need and what is
the right time? This is one hundred percent about that.
So when it came to LA, we lifted out all
of that stuff, We started and graded it, and now
(13:27):
we're making it available for when those organizations needed. So
some of those organizations had reached out and said we're ready,
but it's at the point where the demand matches the supply,
you know.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I feel like the wildfires were just one example of
us not knowing what happens after we donate something, right like, yeah,
this is happening all the time, all over the country,
people are bringing things into their local goodwill or they're
responding to try to help in these types of crisis.
What is it that trashy exists to fix about that
whole process?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, So the way that we fix that whole process
is we can find a solution for all of your stuff,
not just some of it, and then we're going to
show you how we do it. We're going to bring
transparency and traceability to the process. So we certainly advocate
for charity organizations, and I have served one for many,
(14:22):
many years. I also know that the primary purpose of
that organization is not centered around figuring out what to
do with the stuff. It really is centered around extracting
the most amount of value that they can to serve
their mission. Right, So it's just a different purpose. What
Trashy does is we make it really convenient for our
users to give everything to us, and we're going to
(14:44):
say to you, hey, we know exactly what to do
with it, and we're going to make sure that happens,
and we're going to show you how we do it.
So the way that this works is there's plenty solutions
these days, and I think customers don't always know what
those are, but there's plenty of potential partners out there
and communities and cultures out there who if something doesn't
(15:05):
work in the US, like if there's not a market for,
for example, secondhand undergarments, there are in other parts of
the world. So we really grow the intelligence to know
where we can continue to recirculate. And if we're seeing
a large portion of stuff that we don't know what
to do with, we're going to find a partner to
make sure it doesn't go to landfill. So our primary
(15:27):
purpose again is just distinctly to figure out what to
do with your stuff. And I think that I'm going
to lead into another thing if you wouldn't mind, because
I think this is a great interlude into the fact
that what I saw on the ground. One of my
favorite things is to go through people's stuff. It's just
like I love, like love going through people's stuff. And
(15:50):
I think that it just doesn't take long, you know,
to go through people's stuff to come up with the
sort of insights as a user and as a person
who's donating, like it just you can see you can
see it right there. And so much of what I
had saw had seen in Santa Anita. So we collected
twenty five thousand just from that one day event at
(16:12):
the racetrack, and then we collected another twenty five thousand pounds.
Actually it was more like thirty five thousand pounds from
different organ different pickups in the LA area, so totally
between fifty to sixty thousand pounds. What I saw is
people do love their stuff. And I think that in
(16:35):
this consumption culture that we talk about a lot, and
I recognize it's there. There's an increase in production. I
recognize that. And something I didn't totally have my eyes
on until these events is how well loved people keep.
They really loved their stuff. You know, there were like
(16:58):
well loved running sneakers and T shirts and just really
and when I say well loved, I mean worn. And
what that led us to understand is that people just
don't know what to do with their stuff. And I
think they may be questioning whether it makes the most
(17:19):
sense to just unload at goodwill, because a lot of
people do that. Maybe that just doesn't make the most sense.
And now they're sitting on this pile of stuff that
they don't know what to do with. And now there
came a time where they could quote unquote like help
people or so they thought right to help people, to
give them their stuff and to unload something that may
(17:41):
have been sitting in their physical consciousness and their physical environment.
You put these two things together and you have this
unloading of stuff that's really well loved. That's what I saw.
All they need is a container to put their stuff,
like a recycling bin. And that gave me such assurance
knowing that Trashy is on the right track.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
So let's continue going down this track. If one of
the bigger problems is that people don't know what to
do with their stuff, Trashy thinks the answer to that
one is simple, make it easier. After the break, Annie
shares how they're building a system for reuse and recycling
that actually works for consumers, for nonprofits, and for the planet.
(18:29):
Welcome back. We've heard what happens when donation centers are
overwhelmed and how they call Trashy to help deal with
the influx. Now Annie explains how we avoid that kind
of crisis in the first place by making reuse and
recycling easier, more accessible, and maybe even rewarding.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
There's not an access problem. There's an easy access problem. Right,
But when it comes to recycling, and again I want
to define when I say the term recycling when it
comes to things like fashion and that has two things together,
which is reuse and separating for component parts. It's those
two things together and knowing the distinction when that one
(19:11):
or the other happens. Right. And so what trashy provides
is the easy and convenient access. This is literally your
Amazon for second hand, like for second hand or recycling,
this is your Amazon, right. We're going to make it
easy for you to take that pile, no matter what
it looks like, to send it to us, and we
will reward you for it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
So in the back end, you're being trusted to either
reuse or recycle these materials. People can set aside those
fears that everything I'm putting in the recycling is just
going into the trash somewhere. But on the consumer side,
there's other things going on to help incentivize people to
actually recycle reuse their materials. So talk some more about that.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, this is the most I think the coolest part
of the process because what trashy does is we invite
you into a community because you're a part of our
community of people doing this amazing necessary thing for the planet.
We're giving you special deals just by being here, and
those deals are for your regular how you would regularly shop,
(20:18):
So like it's not necessarily for apparel, it's just here's
some deals. They're two experiences. They're to food, they're to travel,
So it's not necessarily a one to one connection of
like give us clothes, buy more clothes. It's not that
at all. So we're giving you special deal just by
being a part of the community. And then users and
(20:41):
super users of our system are getting access to loyalty points. Essentially,
they're not loyalty points, they're recycling points, right, They're called
trashy cash. And then they get to exchange those points
for gift guards to places that they would normally shop.
And again I'm using the word shop as a very
sort of gnostic word for like a very lifestyle. It's
(21:04):
like get yourself a coffee, get yourself a lunch, go travel,
here you go. So it's it becomes more of a
bigger system of lifestyle. So incorporating recycle into that bigger
system of your life.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So we have a lot of nonprofit organizations that listen
to the show, and we always ask like on their behalf,
what would they want to know about this? Like you
mentioned there's three hundred I think you've called them clients
or something like that, partners that you work with. Are
there opportunities for organizations to become partners? How should they
be thinking about working with you all?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's always opportunities to partner, and
it sort of depends on where they're at in a system.
So sometimes we partner with organizations where they actually offer
the take back bag, some nonprofit organizations and some profit
profit organizations that just offer the bag because they want
(22:03):
their community to easily participate in a system. We have
the e waste box and the take back bag. The
beauty behind either of these approaches is it's tangible, so
you can give it out to your community and then
all of the shipping, all of that is bundled into
the experience when you're engaging with the bag, so it's
(22:25):
easy for organizations to hand these out. Another opportunity is
and again it depends on the organization itself. As we
also often partner with organizations on the reuse and recycling
and too, we're always growing our network there. So like
for example, there's some in the LA area doing fiber
to fiber recycling, and so we're setting up networks of
(22:48):
giving these organizations the actual apparel that they need to
feed their system. We are in this business and our
team is in this business to provide a service to
the community and the planet, and we hold that so
it's embodied within us, and so everything that we do
(23:10):
is with an intention to ensure that it's not going
to end up somewhere where it's not being used.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So you've been there since the inception. Just looking back
over all that time, what's one moment where you felt
really proud of what you were doing or you knew
that it was working.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, you know, going back to how we started talking
as being on the ground in Santa Anita was personally
very moving for me and a reminder of why I
do this work. And I think I was just just
(23:50):
really moved to tears by humanity, you know, and the
people who also care about what we do, who also
care about it and we're willing to show up and help,
you know, and they were just such kind people who
truly believed in what it is we did, and they
(24:13):
just learned some of people knew about us and some
people just got on board right away, and I knew
and the way that we were able to jump in
within two days of getting the call right and when
I say the call, I mean the calls, the many
hundreds of calls. We knew that the system that we
(24:34):
had set up is scalable and can support an entire country.
We knew that we could step in and support one
of the biggest cities in the United States. We knew it,
and we were able to pull it off in two
weeks with grace. And that's when I knew that this
is it, you know, and I'm so grateful to be
(24:56):
a part of it again. The people who showed up.
We had a truck driver who lives on the East
Coast who was delivering a fifty three foot truck load
to our facility. He jumped in. He just was sweating,
and he was there because he knew what was important
and just and he's like, I'm just doing this for you,
(25:18):
And that was just I knew. I knew we had arrived.
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah, sometimes it feels like you're alone and then one
hundred people show up to help you do something and
you're like, I'm not alone, and.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You get to see the impact. You know, I'm behind
my computer all day on the phone, and so you know,
just getting to see the impact. It's just such a
great physical and human reminder of why this work matters
so much.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Well, thanks for doing it. Thinks so much.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's my distinct pleasure and I think why I was
brought to this planet.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, a
show about change makers and their stories. Together we can
spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
Thank you for listening this week. Thank you to our
guest Danny Gollngksrude, chief strategy officer at Traggy. Thank you
to Next City's mailand two for her reporting on this story.
Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show producer is
Maggie Bowles, Our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson, and I'm
(26:25):
Lucas Crinley, executive director for Next City. By the way,
Next City is a news organization with a nonprofit model.
If you like what we're doing here, please consider pitching
in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot org slash
membership to make a donation. We'd love to hear any
feedback from our listeners, please feel free to email us
at info at Neexcity dot org and if you haven't already,
subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or
(26:47):
anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.