Andrew LeBlanc
Gabrielle McDyer
Alex Muchnok
St. John's University
Charles Wankel
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Jenelle began her business by cutting up and repurposing clothing that her children had outgrown. From there, she has drastically expanded her business. She is very goal driven. Her goal is to make an impact. "I always wanted to become a teacher," says Jenelle "but as my life progressed, that didn't really happen. But what did happen, is that I became my own boss and started a company that went on to be recognized by Martha Stewart, and has diverted TONS and TONS of clothing from our landfills."
Through properly educating people, Jenelle hopes to be able to change the way humans dispose of old textiles in hopes of benefiting the environment. By doing this, she hopes to create a better world for her children to grow up in.
Jenelle’s innovation came when she wanted to create more sustainable clothes for two kids. Jenelle tells us "it all started around 2009, when I started sewing outgrown clothing from my boys. This is called 'up-cycling.'" She then took this idea and created an online shop that takes old textiles and up-cycles them into new pieces of clothing. She then took this idea and transformed into a textile recycling company where she would buy people’s old textiles and recycle them. The innovation is a comprehensive textile recycling program that she implemented into her community. Jenelle says, "I was looking for a hobby, but was on a low-budget. I didn't have money to spend on new fabrics, but this just kind of came naturally to me."
Jenelle is a self-proclaimed “repurposing and recycling revolutionary." As she explains in the interview.
Jenelle was first inspired by the FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high school. The FFA got her involved in various programs, where she found her passion in environmental studies. She is constantly driven to change the way that we consume and create.
Jenelle started out by sewing clothing that her kids had outgrown (cutting it up and repurposing it). From there, she developed another inspiration through educating herself of the amount of consumption waste that happens on the planet. She wants to create a better world for her children by having the least negative impact on the planet as possible. Jenelle is very passionate about educating people about textile waste and how to properly recycle old textiles, and hopes to be a revolutionary toward changing the United States education system as it is currently designed to place an emphasis on recycling textiles.
The overall impact that Jenelle’s business has is significant. She has already incorporated many ideas into her business that have had a positive impact on the environment, and that impact is only going to increase with time. "Fast-forwarding," Jenelle says, "TrashIn2Tees now has our own boys clothing line. We have our own fabric line, which is made up of 50% recycled cotton, and 50% recycled poly." If she is able to properly incorporate textile waste and recycling into American education systems, the impact her business could have is endless. She has already been able to successfully decrease landfill numbers, and as her business continues to grow, those numbers will improve significantly. I would expect her overall impact to improve drastically in the next few years as her business gets more exposure.
By creating a textile recycling system out of her home Jenelle not only created a way to recycle the textiles but more fabrics for her as well. She was able have access to more textiles for another aspect of her company. By using some of the recycled materials she is saving from being wasted she could also upcycle these materials to create more goods to be used for years to come. Jenelle explains, "If we can model this, if we can teach our youth these healthy habits, as they grow up it's going to become second-nature. They won't have to Google 'where batteries go,' or how to recycle."
Trashn2Tees benefits the environment in a number of ways. By taking old clothing and respinning the threads to make new products, Jenelle is able to benefit the environment by ensuring that nothing goes to waste. Currently, Trashn2Tees has a fabric line that is made of 50% recycled cotton and 50% recycled poly. By doing this, Jenelle is reducing the need for landfill space. Also, rather than letting wool products decompose naturally, which contributes heavily to changes in climate, Jenelle has found another use for them.
Jenelle hopes to be able to benefit society as a whole by educating people about textile waste and how to properly recycle old clothing. Her dream growing up was to become an educator, and she is still driven by her passion to educate. Jenelle hopes that through her business, she can inspire people to change their textile wasting habits and reuse old clothing.
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Jenelle Montilone, Founder
