Goodwill of the Olympics and Rainier region converts about 85% of donations into revenue for job training at our four Work Opportunity Centers, additional satellite offices and retail training sites.
To generate the most revenue for job training from your donations, Goodwill distributes your items across a variety of retail venues – online bidding for high end donations, boutiques for top name brands and home decor, and main retail for department store clothes, furnishings, electronics and decor.
What doesn’t sell at these venues eventually ends up at our Outlet Stores. Coupled with a back-end recycling facility, these stores offer shoppers bargain pricing.
Finally, what doesn’t sell is sorted into raw product and recycled using the international salvage market.
DONATE YOUR TEXTILES. IT’S THE REALLY EASY WAY TO BE GREEN.
Torn or stained items like clothing, linens, single shoes, gloves and socks were once considered garbage. Goodwill, the original recycler, accepts all textile donations, in any condition (except wet or contaminated with hazardous materials) so they can be re-used or recycled into new products.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that textile waste accounts for nearly 5% of all landfill space.
Recyclers like Goodwill keep approximately 3.8 billion pounds of post-consumer textile waste (PCTW) out of the landfills.
On average, US citizens throw away about 70 pounds of clothing and other textiles each year.
GREEN IS EASY. Just keep recyclable items out of the landfill by shifting your donation habits to now include mismatched socks, old tired sheets and dearly worn shoes, and donate them to a Goodwill donation location near you.