This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 print newsletter.
Every day is Earth Day at the Pikes Peak Habitat ReStores! While “Planet vs. Plastics” is the 2024 Earth Day theme, the ReStores also provide new life to gently used building materials and home goods, serve as recycling centers for a variety of materials, and have now added textile recycling to their services.
“Environmentally, it just provides an additional outlet and a one-stop drop,” explains Dylan Johnson, operations manager at the ReStore South, 411 S. Wahsatch Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903. “People have the opportunity to bring us all their building materials and still offload some of the items that would typically go to other places. Dropping it all in one place reduces their carbon footprint.”
The ReStores don’t resell clothing, shoes, and other textiles to customers; instead, these items are sold to a recycling company. Toby Drury, Pikes Peak ReStore director, emphasizes that regardless of condition, donations continue their useful life.
“The [recycling company staff] glean out as many things as they can possibly sell in the United States,” he explains. “They send a portion of it abroad, if other countries will use it. The rest, whatever is not able to be resold, gets broken down into rags or broken up into insulation materials. So it’s being put into other things.”
The textile recycling program serves people who are bringing other items to the ReStores, so they don’t have to visit multiple places to donate goods. The ReStores don’t have the capacity to process and price these items, though, and Drury doesn’t want to compete with other local thrift and secondhand stores that carry clothes, shoes, and accessories.
“We don’t want to get into a niche that somebody else is already in, especially if they’re really good at it,” he explains. “We created a lane of our own, and we’re trying to stay within it.”
While the textiles themselves might not remain in the area, the proceeds do.
“The dollars stay local,” Johnson says. “The effects of donating your clothes here are one, they get properly recycled, and two, they have a 100 percent chance to positively impact somebody, whether it’s locally, nationally, or internationally. And the funds that we receive stay in El Paso County to build homes in El Paso County.”
In addition to textiles, the ReStores also serve as donation centers for nonbiodegradable materials, including metal, paint, and porcelain.
Paint that can’t be resold to customers goes to PaintCare, which passes it to companies that recycle it into new paint. Bringing the process full circle, each ReStore location carries a different brand of recycled paint.
Annually, the ReStores repurpose enough paint to cover the inside of the Pentagon, the world’s largest office building. “That’s a huge deal!” Drury says. “In a day and age where chemicals are getting very difficult to deal with, it’s nice to be able to have an outlet for some of the most-used items for home improvement projects: paints and stains.”
Similarly, the porcelain recycling program gives new use to another non-biodegradable material. While the ReStores resell some used sinks and low-flow toilets, what they can’t sell goes to the Colorado Springs Utilities Commodes to Roads program, which grinds up porcelain to use as road base.
“Porcelain is a compactable base,” explains Drury. “They can get a consistent compaction rate, which is harder to do with natural materials, and when you lay asphalt over the top of that, it will stay.”
The emphasis on recycling and reusing is what drew him to the ReStore.
“Being in the corporate world, we were just selling things to make a profit, and everyone could just go out and buy their way into whatever they felt,” he says. “I came to this particular entity because I knew that we resold things that wouldn’t end up in the landfill; they would continue to live out their usable life.”
Johnson agrees. “Reuse life is great!” he says. “I think the idea of somebody being done with something and somebody else still being able to get use out of that is incredible. I love being able to find those resources for people!”
Donate Textiles to the ReStores
If you’re planning to donate building supplies, home goods, or furniture to the ReStores, why not also clean out your closet and bring us your textiles to recycle? We accept “anything that you would wear, accessories included,” says Dylan Johnson, ReStore South operations manager—but no underwear! We’ll take clothing, shoes, belts, backpacks, and even costume jewelry. Please place items in a bag and leave in the designated bins in donation areas at either ReStore location.
