Retold Recycling finding new life for textiles

Globally, it is estimated that 85 percent of textile materials end up in landfills—equating to millions of tons per year in landfilled material in the U.S. alone.

According to Amelia Trumble, co-founder of Los Angeles-based Retold Recycling, textiles create numerous issues beyond their presence in landfills, including the potential for toxic chemical leaks and the generation of greenhouse gas emissions.

“[Textile production] involves water-intensive cotton production, fabric dyeing and the use of pesticides, chemicals and dyes that can contaminate soil, water and air, alongside factory emissions that contribute to pollution,” she says. “Therefore, any efforts to reduce the demand for virgin textiles can greatly help conserve natural resources and lessen all of this production-related pollution.”

For its part, Retold is helping reduce that virgin demand and landfill reliance. Formed in 2020 by Trumble and business partners Noelle Delory and Alan Yeoh, Retold has developed a subscription-based service that allows customers to send their unwanted textile products for recycling, repurposing or reuse in specially marked bags that also are compostable and biodegradable. The company has developed partnerships with recyclers across the U.S. to process the materials, and since its launch has diverted more than 160 tons of textiles from landfills.

“By thoroughly vetting the partners we choose to work with, we know the textiles we receive are carefully sorted and sent to the appropriate destination for their value and condition,” Trumble says. “It was a one-and-a-half-year process to find our initial partner, due to the complexity of our model—receiving individual bags via the post and sorting them just isn’t something most companies are equipped for. Thankfully, our partner could see our vision and our digital expertise and how that would partner perfectly with his generations-old recycling and sorting capabilities.”

Retold has even gained the support of a shark. Trumble and Yeoh appeared on a 2023 episode of the television show “Shark Tank” and received an offer from Mark Cuban for $300,000 in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the company. Since, Retold has worked to develop new recycling solutions, expand into retail partners, upgrade its technology and add to a growing list of brand partners that have included Jenni Kayne, Verizon, Boody and Vitamin A Swim.

Recycling via subscription

Trumble says providing a subscription model for textiles provides a number of benefits.

“It generates consistent revenue for the business and offers significant advantages for dedicated recyclers,” she says. “For the business, a subscription model ensures a steady income stream, and it can also foster customer loyalty, as subscribers are more likely to remain engaged with the brand over time.

“For customers, particularly those committed to sustainability, a subscription simplifies the process of maintaining an eco-conscious lifestyle,” she adds. “By receiving regular reminders of the service, they are encouraged to recycle textiles on an ongoing basis and, of course, rewards for their bag submissions from our brand partners in our Retold Rewards gallery.”

Retold accepts all clean and dry household textiles and clothes, though there are some limits. Trumble says the company doesn’t accept leather, coated textiles such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyurethane, scrims using plastic, down-filled items, materials containing wet or chemical residue and neoprene. Depending on the item, textiles collected through Retold’s service are sorted and routed to thrift stores, donation centers and recyclers, for example. Retold partners are thoroughly vetted to ensure the materials find a second life.

“The vast majority of what we take in is reused domestically, and our partners ensure that the only items sent overseas are ones that will have a value and purpose at their final destination,” Trumble says. “It is key to our mission to avoid products ending up in landfills throughout the world, not just the U.S.”

Users of Retold’s service can subscribe at the company’s website, which offers its recycling bags—complete with prepaid postage—in various subscription tiers.

Branching out

In July, Retold added the Scraps Bag to its subscription service. The bags are available specifically for fabric scraps from do-it-yourself crafters.

Trumble says the addition of the Scraps Bag was driven by demand from Retold customers, as well as the potential to improve workflows for the company’s recycling partners.

“We had a ton of incoming requests from quilters, sewists and crocheters to create a bag that was dedicated to the scraps of their DIY project,” Trumble says.

Materials collected the Scraps Bag are downcycled into a pulp, Trumble says, and Retold partners then sell that output to consumers that include car manufacturers for use in the inside of seating, or to companies that produce items such as punching bags or moving blankets.

“It’s great because many times the use of this pulp, or ‘shoddy,’ replaces the need for a virgin material to be produced,” Trumble says.

This month, Retold also announced that it had ventured into the hospitality industry.

The company began a pilot in partnership with the Conrad New York Downtown hotel in Manhattan in April where it attempted to divert textiles from landfills while sustainably managing scrap generated by the hotel. Retold says that its first pick-up from the hotel successfully diverted more than 145 pounds of textiles, and plans are in place for quarterly pickups.

According to Trumble, the hotel’s staff gathers its old linens in boxes stored in back of house, and a local Retold recycling partner collects the materials. Retold says its goal is to add several hotel groups to the program by the end of this year.

Trumble cites a study conducted by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) that claims the average hotel discards 13.6 pounds of linens per room, per month, as a reason to expand Retold’s service to the hospitality sector.

“Based on the average size of the hotel rooms, that’s over 4,000 pounds of linens per hotel, per month,” Trumble says. “Knowing this, we felt it was important to build a program to make it easier for hotels to recycle this level of waste rather than it going straight to landfill.”

More to come

Retold recently introduced its new Retail Box, which includes three of the company’s original recycling bags. Trumble says she currently is in conversations with distribution agents and several large retailers to partner on the service.

“We believe this launch will be an ideal opportunity to enter the consumer retail market and increase our visibility in major stores across the U.S.,” she says. “At the end of the day, we want recycling textiles to be as routine as every other recyclable material.”