From Donations to Data: Rewiring Textile Circularity at Scale

Goodwill has been collecting donations for decades, but the conversation around textile sustainability is relatively new. How do you see Goodwill's traditional work fitting into modern sustainability goals? Has your role evolved in recent years? 

Goodwill didn’t pivot into sustainability, we’ve been doing it for nearly 125 years. 

At our core, we’ve always been about keeping goods in circulation and recovering their value for communities. Last year alone, we processed over 4.4 billion pounds of donated goods, turning that into opportunity for more than 2.1 million people annually. That is circularity at scale, long before the term became mainstream. 

What’s changed is the system around us. The volume of textiles is increasing, quality is declining, and traditional resale channels alone can’t absorb what’s coming. That’s forcing a shift from simply operating a reuse system to helping design what comes next. 

We’re now actively working to bring more textile-to-textile recycling capacity online in North America, building the downstream pathways needed to keep materials in circulation after resale. At the same time, we’re investing in data, traceability, and partnerships to better understand where materials flow and how to optimize their next use. 

So, while our mission hasn’t changed, our role has expanded. We’re not just part of the circular economy anymore, we’re helping build the infrastructure that will define it. 

Goodwill has stores across the country and handles massive volumes of textiles. How are you leveraging that infrastructure to create new opportunities for textile circularity? 

If you were designing a circular economy from scratch, you would start with what Goodwill already has. We operate more than 3,400 locations, with 83% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Goodwill. That’s not just a retail footprint; it’s a national collection and sortation network hiding in plain sight. 

The opportunity now is to activate that network differently. We’re moving from a series of local operations to coordinated regional circularity systems - where collection, sorting, and recycling are intentionally connected. 

A great example is our partnership with Reju and the Northeast Goodwill Circularity Hub (link). Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, alongside ten other Goodwill organizations, is aligning its donation centers and post-retail processing to supply prepared, post-consumer textiles directly into Reju’s regeneration facility in Rochester, NY. 

That model does three critical things: 

• Keeps more material domestic 
• Creates consistent, industrial-scale recycling feedstock 
• Connects circularity directly to jobs and local economies 

 What’s happening in the Northeast is a proof point, but more importantly, it’s a blueprint. 

Because the real opportunity is to take what has historically been a resale network and evolve it into the foundation of a North American circular supply chain one that can operate at national scale as more recycling capacity comes online. 

You’re delivering a keynote at the show titled “From Donations to Data: Rewiring the Circular Economy at Scale.” What does data-based “rewiring” actually mean in practical terms for an organization like Goodwill?                                                                   

For us, “rewiring with data” means transforming donations from a series of transactions into a managed material system - one that operates with intelligence, transparency, and purpose at scale. 

At Goodwill’s scale, billions of pounds of goods moving through thousands of locations—data allows us to move from reacting to what shows up to actively directing where materials go and why. It helps us extend product life, route items to their highest-value use, and make more precise decisions about when something should be reused, repurposed, or recycled. 

We’ve already tested over 400,000 post-retail garments for fiber composition and found that roughly 60% are compatible with existing recycling technologies. That kind of insight doesn’t just improve operations, it starts to reshape how the entire system is designed. 

But the bigger shift is external. We’re working to build real supply chain transparency and traceability across the lifecycle of goods so every item has a clearer, more intentional path. That visibility allows us to minimize waste, optimize outcomes across reuse and recycling, and create a level of accountability the system has never had before. 

It also builds trust with consumers, with partners, and with brands that are increasingly being asked to stand behind the full lifecycle of their products. Our role is to help move the industry from a fragmented, opaque system… to one that is visible, measurable, and designed to keep materials in use. That’s what “rewiring” looks like in practice and it’s how we help shape a circular economy that actually works. 

What are you learning from the donations people bring to Goodwill? Are the volumes, types, and quality of textiles changing, and what does that tell you about how American’s are consuming clothes?  

The donation stream is one of the clearest signals of what’s happening in the broader economy and right now, it’s telling a very clear story. 

We’re seeing higher volumes, faster turnover in styles, and a noticeable decline in average garment quality. At the same time, demand for secondhand is accelerating rapidly. The resale market is growing multiple times faster than traditional retail, and it’s being driven by new and younger consumers entering the market. In fact, a significant majority of Gen Z consumers are already buying or interested in secondhand, and for many of them, it’s becoming a primary way they engage with apparel.  

So you have two things happening at once: demand for secondhand is rising, but the quality and durability of what’s being produced is declining. 

What that tells us is we’re operating in an overproduction system. The speed at which clothing is being made and consumed is outpacing the system’s ability to responsibly reuse or recycle it. That creates real pressure, but it also creates opportunity. 

For us, these are leading indicators of where the entire industry is headed. They tell us where infrastructure is missing, where quality matters, and where we need to invest to keep more materials in circulation. In many ways, what shows up in our donation stream today is a preview of the challenges, and the scale of opportunity that the industry will face tomorrow. 

Not everything that comes through a Goodwill donation center can be resold or recycled into fiber-to-fiber applications. What happens to the material that falls through the cracks, and does that give us any insight into what we should be doing differently? 

We have multiple retail channels to keep donated goods in circulation, which include retail stores, outlet stores, and ecommerce. After exhausting all of these channels, leftover product is sold in bulk to salvage buyers and brokers.  

This centuries-old global secondhand marketplace is centered on finding a home for items that do not sell in domestic secondhand retail markets. Salvage buyers purchase textiles in bulk to be graded into hundreds of categories to be sold for resale, recycling, rags and wipers, or export, depending on specific market needs.  

Selling in bulk to salvage buyers is currently the only solution that exists in America, at scale, to extend the life of donated goods that have gone through secondhand thrift channels. 

Goodwill is engaged in a study to follow the global journey of secondhand textiles. This research will inform reuse and recycling strategies and help shape industry standards for traceability and product lifecycle stewardship.  

We are working with stakeholders across the textile value chain to ensure that products go to their highest and best use. The study concludes this year and is the first part of a multi-year initiative to improve visibility into how secondhand textiles and other products are handled around the world. 

How has technology and data changed the way Goodwill sorts and processes donated textiles? What's possible now that wasn't before? 

Technologies like advanced sortation equipment are crucial for making textile-to-textile recycling work economically for all stakeholders. Without technology, identifying fiber composition and preparing feedstock is a non-starter from a financial perspective. 

Goodwill has completed in-depth analysis and research on leading textile sorting equipment offerings available on the market. This work is currently informing decisions on facility design and set-up for Goodwill’s feedstock preparation as the textile-to-textile market scales. Sorting criteria will vary based on textile recyclers’ diverse feedstock specifications and needs across fiber composition, color, and other factors, as well as trim removal. 

Goodwill sits in a unique position between donors, retailers, recyclers, and manufacturers. How are you using that position to drive collaboration in the circular economy? 

Goodwill sits at the center of a system that has historically been fragmented, and that creates a real opportunity. We see the full lifecycle in a way few others can. We see what’s being produced, what consumers are using, and what ultimately comes back at end of life. That gives us not just insight, but the ability to help shape how the system evolves. 

Our focus is on turning that position into a platform for alignment. We’re bringing together retailers, recyclers, manufacturers, and innovators around a shared set of realities, what materials are flowing, what condition they’re in, and what it takes to move them to their next best use at scale. That includes sharing data, piloting new models, and helping align supply with the emerging demand for recycled inputs. 

But more broadly, we’re helping shift the system from one that operates in silos to one that is coordinated. The circular economy doesn’t fail for lack of effort, it fails for lack of connection. Our role is to help connect the system end to end, so what is produced, what is consumed, and what is recovered are no longer disconnected decisions, but part of a single, functioning system. 

From your vantage point running one of the largest textile collection networks in the country, what's the biggest gap or bottleneck you see in the textile recycling system? 

The biggest bottleneck sits between collection and recycling: preparing post‑consumer textiles into usable, specification‑ready feedstock. We have the infrastructure to collect at scale, and the technology to recycle, but someone has to do the work of processing the material (e.g. removing trims, shredding, pelletizing, etc.) so it can actually enter recycling systems economically and consistently. That feedstock preparation step is complex, capital‑intensive, and still underdeveloped in North America. 

A related challenge is that many recyclers continue to focus on post‑industrial or pre‑consumer textiles because the feedstock is more predictable. While understandable, that represents only a small fraction of the material available and doesn’t address the growing volume of post‑consumer textiles already in circulation. Relying solely on pre‑consumer waste also risks reinforcing overproduction rather than building a truly circular system. 

Moving textile recycling beyond pilots will require greater focus on post‑consumer feedstock and investment in the infrastructure needed to prepare it reliably at scale. We’re encouraged by recyclers like Reju who recognize this reality and are designing systems specifically to handle secondhand textiles.  

To scale textile recycling in a meaningful way, we also need policies, such as extended producer responsibility frameworks, that recognize the cost and complexity of managing postconsumer textiles and help fund the infrastructure required to prepare feedstock at scale. Bridging that feedstock preparation gap is where the next phase of progress, and partnership, needs to happen. 

If you had to name one thing the textile and fashion industry needs to hear that they're probably not ready to hear, what would it be?   

I think one thing the industry isn’t fully ready to hear is that post‑consumer textiles already have value, and any circular system has to account for that reality. There’s sometimes an assumption that large volumes of donated clothing will be cheap or readily available for recycling, but those same items are actively supporting reuse markets, jobs, and community services today. 

Reuse, keeping a garment in its original form and in use for as long as possible, is still the most effective outcome from both an environmental and economic standpoint. Recycling is essential, especially for items that truly can’t be reused, but it can’t be built on the premise that post‑consumer feedstock is free or without competing demand. 

If we want textile recycling to scale, it has to be economically viable for every part of the system, from collection and sorting to feedstock preparation and reprocessing. That means designing solutions that complement reuse rather than displacing it and being honest about the true costs and tradeoffs involved in managing post‑consumer textiles. 

In your view, what value do events like ours bring to the textiles recycling industry and why should people attend? 

This industry is at an inflection point. We don’t have a shortage of ideas, we have a shortage of alignment, capital at scale, and coordinated execution. And that’s exactly what gatherings like this unlock. 

Events like this bring together the full system - brands, recyclers, operators, innovators, and policymakers - in a way that almost never happens otherwise. And when you get the full system in the room, conversations shift from theory to action. 

Partnerships form. Standards begin to align. Real commitments get made. The circular economy isn’t going to be built by any one company or sector. It will be built through coordinated systems, and those systems only emerge when people come together around a shared understanding of the problem and a shared commitment to solve it. 

If you want to see where this industry is going, not in five years, but right now, this is where it happens.