Out with the old, in with the new. It’s a classic adage often used to justify change in our lives and society. Unfortunately, it’s a saying that’s recycled far more frequently than items we consider “trash” in America. Our tendency to claim stuff as broken, unwanted or useless has given us a reputation as a “throw-away society.”
Case in point: Residents of San Francisco send 4,500 pounds of textiles to landfill every hour of every day.
The good news is that it’s easy to do your part in slowing the textile-to-landfill deluge. Simply toss your used jeans into a Goodwill donation bin instead of kicking them to the curb.
Goodwill is great for local communities because it not only helps reduce textile waste, but it also creates jobs. In the Bay Area alone, Goodwill chapters diverted more than 42 million pounds of textiles from local landfills last year and helped more than 1,000 people find jobs.
It’s this tremendous impact that’s served as the foundation for LS&Co.’s strong partnership with Goodwill, both in the Bay Area and nationally. For example, every year LS&Co. donates approximately $2.5 million in product samples to Goodwill in the United States. This allows us to sustainably redirect thousands of product samples while generating hundreds of thousands in donations to Goodwill to fund job-training programs.
As part of our work to support Goodwill, LS&Co. is joining forces with the San Francisco 49ers for the “Field of Jeans™” donation drive at Levi’s Stadium on Nov. 2. All donations of jeans and other clothing made that day will benefit Goodwill. So, if you’re attending the game, bring your used jeans and other clothes to help the cause. Or, if you can’t make it that day, drop off your donations at your local Goodwill.
After the game, all denim collected during the drive will be used to create a one-of-a-kind Field of Jeans™ at Levi’s Stadium. The Field of Jeans™ will serve as a unique visual representation of the tremendous impact we can all make by coming together to donate instead of trashing used textiles.
Visit http://www.levisstadium.com/fieldofjeans/ to learn more about the Field of Jeans™ donation drive. To find a donation site near you, use the Locator tool available at http://www.goodwill.org.
Photo credit: Terrell Lloyd
