What do we do with your donated textiles?

What do we do with your donated textiles?

Used textiles do have utility and value, and this creates opportunity to divert textiles out of the waste stream, revive the product’s life, or reincarnate the raw materials.

• Some items may be donated to other organizations or individuals, or used for other projects.
• Talk to us if you have a special item you want to donate but do not want to be recycled.

We sell approved items to Trans-Continental Textile Recycling Ltd (TCTR), a British Columbia owned and operated company that has processed recycled textiles since 1990. TCTR takes full responsibility for the complete processing and distribution of all the textiles collected, from usable clothing to industrial wiping rags and textile waste. 

• Wiping rags. Approximately 8,000 pounds a day of unwearable cotton and cotton blend clothing is sorted and cut in our facility into wiping rags for industry. The wiping rags are a better and more environmentally sustainable alternative to paper wipers, and provide local businesses with a local supplier of wiping rags. 
• Useable clothing  is shipped to developing countries, mostly in Africa. Did You Know that over 70% of the world's population wear second hand clothes? Because of the efficient processing system we have at TCTR, we are able to deliver clothing to those who need it, at a price they can afford.  We can deliver a T-shirt, for example, to a port in Africa, for as little as 14 cents.
• Textile Recycling.  Trans-Continental TCTR initiates the process of recycling various materials of knitted clothing such as wool and acrylics, as well as woven materials, sorting them into many grades: unwearable material of no cotton content, for example, wool knits and wool wovens, acrylics of solids and mixed colours, and others, which through a process of “pulling” are remade into thread and re used to make new clothing and textiles. You may be surprised to know that you can find recycled textiles used as stuffing, insulation and soundproofing in your furniture, car and house and even in the clothing you are wearing.   Even our waste cuttings from the wiping rag process are baled as a low quality grade and sent to mills to process into a thread of low grade.
• The complete processing of the textiles, including what would be considered “waste”, ensures that no textile article will go to landfill. TCTR ensures that this responsible and ecologically sustainable model is performed here in Canada by Canadian workers in a safe and socially responsible workplace.

Money raised is used to support a variety of projects and not-for- profit organizations.