Alexis Coven
St. John's University
Charles Wankel
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2ReWear is an innovative private corporation that recycles clothing and footwear from landfills into products that can be sold to consumers. 2ReWear was founded to save the Earth from the hundreds of millions of pounds of clothing that will end up in the landfills.
Principal, Eric Stubin, said "2ReWear is an ecosystem for what you wear. We supply turnkey collection and reuse solutions to apparel, footwear, and home textile brands and retailers. 2ReWear collects and finds a second life for our footwear and textiles to keep what we wear from landfills. 2ReWear benefits our environment, cities, towns and our partner brands & retailers. This makes us an integral part of the circular economy for post-consumer textiles. 2ReWear is a new spin on one of the world’s oldest recycling models - clothing recycling."
The principals of 2ReWear Eric Stubin, Ed Stubin, William Schapiro, and Brian London also make up the leadership of two of the oldest and most experienced textile recyclers in the United States: Trans-Americas Textile Recycling Inc. (www.tranclo.com) and Whitehouse & Schapiro ( www.webuyrags.com ). The principals and parent companies recycle more than 100 Million pounds annually. All 4 owners have an important role within 2ReWear.
Eric Stubin said, "After spending several years reaching out to apparel businesses on behalf of our industry, it became clear that there was a leading group of sustainable clothing and footwear companies focusing on the issue of post-consumer textile waste. However, most companies seem to approach the issue of post-consumer textile waste in a proprietary way."
2ReWear was born in 2014 in an effort to offer textile recycling solutions to brands and retailers. Stubin said, "Our motivation is to keep what consumers wear from landfills and find a home for hundreds of millions of pounds of apparel, footwear, and textiles. Each year the EPA tells us 85% or about 25 Billion pounds of post-consumer textiles end up in landfills. That’s about 81 lbs. per person."
2ReWear has great aspirations for sanitation and responsible production. Eric Stubin explained, "We hope to see local, state, and federal recycling rates and overall volumes of post-consumer textiles: apparel, footwear, and home textiles increase. We hope to wake up in a world where 2ReWear and other stakeholders including cities, states, academics, brands, retailers, and consumers work together to increase diversion of post-consumer textiles from landfills."
According to Stubin, "2ReWear is just getting started; at scale 2ReWear has the potential to keep hundreds of millions of pounds from landfill. In addition to finding a second life via our Reuse and Reloop process; we help to lower solid waste costs. 2ReWear extends the life of garments, footwear, and home textiles to save important natural resources like water while cutting back our CO2 footprint."
"Our approach is innovative and benefits all stakeholders in our model," said Stubin. "Consumers, municipalities, brands, retailers, and charities all benefit in our model. 2ReWear was founded as a benefit corporation, with a mission to keep what we wear out of landfills and a model that rewards charities for every pound participating retailers collect."
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Eric Stubin, 2ReWear
