Goodwill leaders meet to explore circularity initiatives

As part of its ongoing effort to advance circularity and extend the life of donated goods, Rockville, Maryland-based Goodwill Industries International (GII) and its affiliated member organizations from the United States, Canada and Finland recently gathered in Rochester, New York, for a two-day event on textile circularity.

Sixty Goodwill leaders, along with textile recycling partners such as Accelerating Circularity, Tomra, Sortile and researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology, participated in the event, which Goodwill says featured demonstrations of textile sorting and grading, garment deconstruction, circularity landscape modeling and information about recycling machinery and equipment.

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During the event, Goodwill organizations shared the results of a variety of recycling pilots taking place across its network, including updates from those taking part in a textile recycling pilot program funded by the Walmart Foundation. The two-year project is aimed at transforming unwearable donations into raw material for textile recycling, according to Goodwill. Under the program, Goodwill is partnering with Accelerating Circularity, a developer of circular textile supply chains, to establish regional sortation hubs to collect, sort and prepare textiles for reuse and recycling.

“For more than 120 years, Goodwill has been expanding the market for reuse of textiles and other goods,” GII President and CEO Steve Preston says. “This recent summit underscores Goodwill’s continued commitment to advancing textile circularity by ensuring that we get the highest value out of every item entrusted to us for our planet, our communities and our people. With the support of Walmart Foundation and partners from other sectors of the textile circularity ecosystem, we are developing a number of pathways for goods to minimize waste and maximize value through reuse, remanufacturing and recycling.”

Jennifer Lake, president and CEO of Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, which serves Rochester and Syracuse, New York, and hosted the event, says, “As emerging recycling technology scales in the U.S., Goodwill is uniquely positioned to ensure unwearable cotton and polyester textiles are recycled into new materials fueling that circular textile economy.”

Goodwill says revenue from the sale of donated goods supports job training, placement and other essential services for community members who face obstacles to employment. The organization is working on initiatives at the local, regional and international level to develop additional revenue sources to fund the nonprofit’s programs and services.

The Goodwill network’s circularity goals, programs and initiatives extend beyond the Rochester event, it says. In August, GII will host its inaugural Sustainability Summit in Washington, which will feature prominent industry speakers and promote further collaboration, learning and action around sustainability.

Goodwill says its network plays a critical role in powering the circular economy, operating more than 3,300 stores across the U.S. and Canada, with multiple retail channels to keep products in use and out of landfills. In 2023, In 2023, the organization says it recovered the value of more than 4.3 billion pounds of donated products which supported the development of skills training, job placement, career advancement opportunities and other community-based services for more than 1.7 million people.