Blue Cast: Goodwill’s Brittany Dickinson on Getting More Value Out of Goods
Extending the lifespan for fashion items has a direct effect on reducing their environmental impact. Resale helps recapture goods that would otherwise be tossed in the trash, allowing them to find a second life.
For the first episode in our four-part Circularity Solutionist podcast series with the Fashion Impact Fund, Lenzing’s Tricia Carey chatted with Brittany Dickinson, manager of sustainability at Goodwill, about the organization’s work in circularity. Brittany has spent 15 years in the fashion industry, and describes her current role as her “dream job.”
The biggest misconception about Goodwill, per Brittany, is that it is “just a thrift store.” The nonprofit’s mission is also centered on job training and placement for people in the community.
Goodwill Industries International is also comprised of many smaller local organizations, which operate autonomously. Through this local presence, 82 percent of the U.S. population has a Goodwill store within 10 miles.
One of Goodwill’s missions is to keep goods out of landfills. And while this is accomplished through resale, the local organizations are also running circular initiatives, such as upcycling projects and studies on repair. Goodwill Industries of Southern Florida recently received a grant from Walmart that will support a two-year project on textile recycling in partnership with Accelerating Circularity. “There’s a lot of work right now being done in the recycling, innovation, and upcycling and that whole area of just trying to understand how we can extend the life of the materials that flow through our many stores,” said Brittany.
Because of the rise of online resale, Goodwill is often the last stop for garment reuse and a final resort for consumers looking to get rid of their items. Using a hierarchy of circularity, Goodwill tries to extract as much value and lifespan as possible from goods. For instance, salable merchandise that doesn’t get purchased in stores goes on to Goodwill’s outlets.
“Circularity, similar to the word sustainability, has become so overused, and I think that it’s a word that’s kind of thrown around without any deep understanding of what it actually means,” Brittany said. “The definition is very simple: It’s about keeping materials in use or in circulation for as long as possible, ideally forever.”
Brittany noted that while there are still high-quality donations, the quality has been declining, leading to less volume of goods that can be resold. This is partly due to the rise of fast fashion, which creates products that don’t hold up over time. Fashion’s tendency toward mixed fibers also complicates textile recycling efforts.
“How clothing is manufactured and consumed has a direct impact on Goodwill,” Brittany said. “It’s really difficult to keep an item in reuse if it was created to only last for a couple of wears.”
Listen to the episode here.