How we recycle
A solution to the 85% of used textiles and electronics that end up in landfills
Trashie is on a mission to make recycling easy, accessible, and rewarding for everyone. Through our TBB program, we enable people to conveniently send back their unwanted items like an online return, ensuring these items find their next best use.
We focus on product categories that are most critical to recover because these items frequently end up in landfills, where they contribute to significant environmental harm. Products like textiles, electronics, and certain household items are often discarded due to a lack of proper recycling infrastructure or awareness.
Our 500,000 Take Back Bag users make it all possible—playing a vital role in advancing circularity by returning textiles and electronics. Trashie then ensures these materials are reused, repurposed, or recycled, keeping them out of landfills.
What happens to your stuff
Step 1: Collection Your unwanted stuff is securely transported to our facility by trusted shipping networks such as UPS, ensuring a vigilant chain of custody every step of the way.
Step 2: Secure In-House Sorting and Grading Each item is carefully assessed to determine whether it can be reused in its existing form, or if it requires recycling for materials. Items are carefully sorted and graded based on quality, condition, and demand. This ensures that each item can be directed to the most suitable next use, whether resale, donation, specific market need, or recycling. For items like electronics, we perform certified data sanitization to ensure all personal data is permanently erased. Devices are then prepared for reuse, refurbishment, or recycling.
Step 3: Redistribution or Responsible Recycling Reusable items are redistributed through a network of global partners, ensuring they reach the right people at the right time. Recycled materials are sent to certified facilities for further processing and reintegration into manufacturing systems.
Step 4: Regulatory Compliance We prioritize strict adherence to all relevant regulations and standards to ensure safe, responsible, and ethical recycling practices. From data protection laws to environmental guidelines, our processes are designed to meet or exceed compliance requirements.
Step 5: Reporting and Impact Measurement We provide detailed reporting on where items go, how they’re reused or recycled, and the environmental impact achieved.
ONSHORE PRECISION SORTING
We sort and grade everything we collect in the most advanced facilities in North America.
Our meticulous grading system ensures that every item, whether e-waste or textiles, is sorted into a specific category based on factors such as quality, category, and material. This detailed process allows us to accurately assess each item before it is redirected, ensuring that nothing is blindly exported.
Through precision sorting, we improve both reuse and recycling efficiency, ensuring that any non-recyclable waste is removed at the very first step.
Maximizing Reuse
If an item can still fulfill its original purpose, the most sustainable choice is to find it a new home. This minimizes the environmental impact associated with recycling, such as water usage, energy consumption, and shipping. By extending the life of an item, we reduce waste and also honor the resources and energy invested in its creation, ensuring maximum value is derived from its use.
The good news? Reuse is thriving. Seventy percent of the world’s population wears used clothing, and 40% of consumers globally were buying refurbished devices*.
When reuse is no longer an option, responsible recycling steps in to recover valuable materials and prevent waste from ending up in landfills. By combining reuse and recycling, we ensure that every item is directed to its best possible next life, whether through finding a new home or becoming a resource for future manufacturing.
*Morgan Stanley
Transparency
We are committed to building trust through clear, accountable processes. Our best-in-class data system tracks every item, providing real-time sorting and grading reports and following each grade to its next life—whether reuse, resale, or recycling.
Continuous Improvement through Innovation
Innovation is at the core of everything we do, driving us to refine our processes, adopt new technologies, and enhance our impact.
We invest in state-of-the-art systems to ensure our sorting, grading, and recycling practices are as efficient and effective as possible. Our data-driven approach allows us to analyze performance, identify opportunities for optimization, and adapt to evolving industry standards and sustainability goals.
Why customers love cleaning out their closets with The Take Back Bag
“Love the Take Back Bag! This will be my third one. It fits a large amount of textiles, so I can really pack it in with all the items that I can no longer donate.”
“I got my first bag, stuffed it full of worn out t-shirts, printed the shipping label, and dropped it off at the post office. It was so easy, I ordered 2 more bags. I used my closet cash to get Zero Waste laundry sheets. They work great. Everything should be this easy peasy.”
“What a delightfully easy way to recycle. I was getting a little weary of donating my clothes at the local thrift shop, watching them dumped into heaps and heaps of other donations.”
DO GOOD, HAVE FUN, GET REWARDS
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