The impact of recycling textiles might not be evident to everyone.
But veteran-owned Apparel Impact in Hooksett is making an effort to change that, complete with a new comic book series featuring “Team Impact!” — the guardians of textile recycling. The series is designed to teach and promote textile recycling.
The statistics are staggering: 85% of clothing ends up in the trash. The textiles clog waste streams and can take between 200 and 2,000 years to degrade in the ground, potentially polluting water sources, said Joe Whitten, co-founder and CEO.
“We divert waste, which is the fastest growing waste stream,” he said. “We also clothe over 4,000 people a year.”
Apparel Impact places metal “clothing recovery” bins in various locations to collect the unwanted materials. The business now maintains 1,300 of them.
Apparel Impact was named New Hampshire’s Veteran-owned Business of the Year by the New Hampshire district of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
Whitten, 37, who served in the Army, started the business with his father, Ken, who served in the Air Force.
The SBA will hold an awards ceremony at 8:45 a.m. on April 30 at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry.
Amy Bassett, district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration New Hampshire District, took a tour of the operation last Wednesday.
“It was eye-opening to know the level of waste that discarded clothing is causing and that it is the No. 1 discarded thing, exceeding plastic,” she said. “The fact that they give back is incredible.”
The company now services six states and has a second warehouse in New York.
Whitten said he grew up watching “Captain Planet,” an environmentalist superhero TV series, which ran for two years in the 1990s.
He says “Team Impact!” is the first planet-saving comic since.
The second comic book, which comes out in a few months, will introduce a villain, Dr. Toxic.
“The first one is just to tell the kids that you can recycle your clothes,” said Jessie Crowe, the company’s chief of staff. The next edition will be more action-packed, Crowe promised.
“You can’t change the behavior of adults, it is really difficult,” Whitten said. “What we can do is educate the next generation.”
Some schools have the bins located on properties to go along with the curriculum.
The company, which launched about nine years ago, placed its first homemade collection bin at Nickles Market on Candia Road in Manchester.
“We wanted to start a company that made a difference environmentally, but also had a community aspect to it,” Whitten said.
He did so while still working in software for Oracle. He quit there once Apparel Impact reached 50 locations.
The company has grown into the largest clothing recycling company in Maine, surpassing the Salvation Army.
New life for old rags
Whitten said the company makes money by selling the material to clothing graders and wholesalers.
No one gives a second thought to recycling companies generating profit from discarded paper, plastic and glass, he said.
“Textiles have been a commodity for 100 years,” he said. “That’s used clothing.”
Of the collected clothes, 80% will be reused, and 20% will be upcycled (made into new wearable products) or downcycled (turned into products such as insulation, industrial wipes or carpets).
The company moved into its new space on Crane Way in Hooksett in 2022 with the assistance of the SBA and Primary Bank.
The company employs 40 people, 30 in the Granite State. About 10% are military veterans.
Some of the workers come from Easterseals and help sort through donations.
The company hosts free outreach events, which usually involve free food and other resources.
“They come and shop as much as they want,” Whitten said. “We don’t put a limit on it.”
Last year, the company helped divert 10 million pounds of clothing from landfills, and Whitten wants that number to double in the next three years. He also wants the outreach event attendance to increase from 4,000 to 6,000 people.
The warehouse features a “cigar deck,” where employees can gather and talk about the job, and even religion and politics.
The corner of the metal platform includes several military uniforms on display.
“We save them from bags that people throw out,” Whitten said.
