What better way to ring in "new beginnings" season than with a massive closet cleanout?
Don't stress about the whole declutter, ditch, donate process, though. This time, Trashie — the trailblazing startup saving your home organization, planet, and budget — has it handled.
First, order Trashie's Take Back Bag for just $20. Then pack it with up to 15 pounds of washed (but unwanted) clothes, shoes, towels, bedding, and anything else textiles. Use the QR code to download and print your shipping label. Drop at your nearest U.S. post office, and you're done.
Wait, there's more: Trashie gives you prizes for doing chores. With TrashieCash, the brand's rewards program, you can score discounts and credits to redeem with tons of retailers — from major stores (Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe's) to trendy labels (Alo Yoga, Anthropologie, Madewell) to concert tickets, parenting must-haves, meal prep kits, food delivery services, and more. (Stay on top of the latest and best deals when you sign up for Trashie's mailing list.)
"The hard truth is that people aren't solely motivated by 'doing the right thing,'" CEO Kristy Caylor stated in a LinkedIn post. "They have to find VALUE in doing the right thing." That ethos echoes, as Trashie's homepage reads, "Do better, get rewards."
Only around 15% of Americans "discarded clothing and textiles are collected for reuse, recycling, or downcycling," says one sobering statistic from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. That means the rest of our trashed fashion heads to landfills, where it sits and churns out serious environmental pollution — releasing methane, a toxic gas; contaminating water; threatening natural disasters; and even making us sick.
Hence Trashie's goal to keep clothes out of landfills — which it does through a comprehensive process described by Caylor in another LinkedIn post. When a Take Back Bag arrives at Trashie's Texas recycling operation, about 95% of its contents will likely be reused — but first, every single item in the bag must be independently scrutinized, sorted, scanned, and sent to the next stop on its "responsible reuse" journey.
"We've collected 8.4M items saving 4.3M lbs from landfills," Caylor said of the initiative's results over a year. Convenience, reputation, and success have earned the Take Back Bag over half a million sales in that same period, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z — one more sign, Caylor noted, that circular brands are "going mainstream."
She may be right, because Trashie customers are coming back for more.
"The concept of the Trashie bag is fabulous. [It's] allowed me to free up more space," one online reviewer said. "I no longer feel guilty getting rid of things. … This is the perfect solution to decluttering, while knowing that you're doing good for the earth and yourself."
Sounds like a win-win-win.
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