Helpsy: A Sustainable Revolution in Textile Recycling

We're joined by Lisa Sciannella, Chief of Staff at Helpsy, and we discuss the story behind Helpsy's transformative journey in textile recycling. The episode offers a deep dive into the company's origins, initiated eight years ago when three friends, Alex, Dan, and Dave, acquired three clothing bin collection companies. Lisa highlights the evolution and innovation within Helpsy's sorting processes, emphasizing its unwavering commitment to environmental sustainability.

The discussion unfolds to explore the logistics of clothing collection, encompassing the strategic placement of bins in parking lots, clothing drives, and strategic collaborations with municipalities. Lisa provides valuable insights into Helpsy's unique approach of compensating municipalities for diverted clothes, creating a symbiotic relationship benefiting both local communities and the environment. Additionally, she dispels misconceptions about donating to nonprofits, shedding light on Helpsy's collaborative efforts to turn unusable clothing into funds for various charitable missions.

Lisa shares the intricacies of sorting and pricing items, led by Jessica and a team that employs technology to efficiently categorize items based on brand and damage levels. The conversation unveils Helpsy's dynamic pricing strategy, shaped by market trends and customer feedback from a vast network of over 6,000 thrift stores and resellers.

The episode concludes with a focus on Helpsy's commitment to creating meaningful employment opportunities and supporting its workforce. Lisa delves into the intentional approach of being a second-chance employer, offering opportunities to individuals who may have faced challenges in the past. The podcast encapsulates Helpsy's comprehensive approach to sustainable practices, community engagement, and social responsibility.

Lisa shares her personal journey from being a secondary math teacher to her current role in textile recycling and sustainability at Helpsy. Lisa emphasizes the pivotal role of education and outreach in creating awareness about textile waste and the environmental impact of discarding clothing. The conversation touches on the growth of textile waste, collaborations with municipalities, and the role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in regulating the fashion industry. Lisa provides intriguing insights, revealing surprising aspects of fast fashion brands and discussing Helpsy's in-house sorting app, Quick Scan, designed for efficient categorization.

The podcast encourages listeners to explore more about Helpsy through its website, social media handles, and email. Stay tuned for future episodes on the Mike Ham podcast, offering profound insights into the sustainable fashion and recycling industry.

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Transcript

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greatness hey

2:05

all right what's up everybody welcome back to another episode of green with the Garden State powered by the New Jersey Lottery I'm your host Mike cam

2:10

we're here at helpy in Eaton Town with Lisa chanella Lisa welcome to the show hi thanks for having me absolutely so uh

2:17

we're in the warehouse again um well I'm in the warehouse again this is my second the warehouse again again yeah uh this

2:23

is my second time here cuz I was on a panel whatever that was like a few months ago was that October yeah it was

2:29

October and we were talking about all kinds of different industry secondhand clothing industry stuff yeah which I was

2:36

a unique addition to that panel a very local addition to the panel sure you know and I think I I brought something

2:41

to the table I think you know uh but now we're back and talking more about what helpsy is what they do um so before we

2:49

kind of get into that uh let's like well let's let's do this let's tell the viewers listeners um what helpsy is like

2:57

30,000 ft View and then we'll kind of get into like what you do here and then we'll kind of get into like the nitty-gritty of like all the stuff as we

3:03

kind of progress through the episode so helpy has uh two missions one keep clothes out of the trash two provide

3:10

honorable work and I guess three like make a profit we're a certified B Corp so we

3:16

are for-profit using business as a Force for good and basically we want to take clothes textille shoes Linens tablecloth

3:22

and divert it from the landfill um 85% of clothes end up in the trash that's

3:28

like a huge number and it's you know unacceptable and it's a really fast growing waste stream the fastest and

3:35

it's only getting faster so we want to do our part in you know diverting it from the landfill yeah so what do you do

3:42

here so I'm chief of staff that means I wear lots of hats hopefully one of those

3:47

from to Jersey hats um so I do a lot of like um fun things like planning the

3:52

events um like the panel that you were on this morning we had some guests from uh recycling coordinators um I do kind

4:00

of a little bit of everything so that's fun yeah of course and also being now like the face of helpsy for this show so

4:08

yeah for the show I the face um that's really cool so uh let's talk about how

4:13

helsy got started uh so like how long has halsy been a thing so halsy started

4:19

around eight years ago as the acquisition of three just clothing bin collection companies um it was started

4:25

by three co-founders Alex Dan and Dave they were uh lifelong friends and they were all kind of at a point in their

4:31

career they were like we want to make a change we want to do something impactful so they they started helpy and they bought three uh Bin companies one of

4:37

them was in New Jersey one of them was in New York and one was in uh Massachusetts and they kind of like metled them all together um since then

4:44

there's been other small smaller Acquisitions and then a lot of innovation in like the Sorting space

4:50

yeah um which I think brings a unique value to like the cloth sure cuz this I

4:56

mean we're at a warehouse right now and there's so like we just walk through downstairs and there's like so much

5:01

stuff so much CL so much stuff here um like what do you do with all that that's

5:08

is a great question so we collect just to give you some perspective 31 million pounds of clothes a year that's a lot

5:16

yeah I think it's about one item of clothing per second yeah um which is

5:22

huge so what happens to it the short answer is we promote re resale and reuse

5:27

right because the most sustainable thing you can do with clothes that already exist is use them as clothes use them again as clothed use them again as

5:33

clothes and then when they're not usable as clothes anymore okay can we be used as like a wiper or stuffing or insallation like anything to keep them

5:39

out of the trash so the short answer is we resell uh we resell to lots of different channels we resell full

5:45

containers at a time so 40,000 pounds at a time or we sell through helpsy Source

5:50

you know smaller packs of curated inventory by Brandon condition so if you're a thrift store or you're a reseller and you want 100 items of Zara

5:58

that have been condition check hit us up yeah right you know you won't know exactly what size or style it is

6:04

but you'll know that it's Zara and you'll know that it's been conditioned checked and if that's a brand that you like or that you you know knowledgeable

6:11

about selling like you can flip it if they want you to flip it sure um and then so you said uh resell uh so like

6:19

who do you sell like just kind of like round out like I guess like the the life cycle of these things like they come in

6:25

and then they obviously get sorted which we'll talk about and like kind of the technology behind that a little bit um but then obviously like the resale side

6:32

of it you know uh like who are you selling to like how does that stuff how does that stuff work are you you like

6:37

the main seller of these things afterwards or do you sell to like a reseller again almost yeah so we're kind

6:44

of like wholesale so we sell um B2B so we sell to businesses so if you are a larger business and you want 40,000 lb

6:50

of clothes why do you want that much clothes well you're probably a shorter greater yourself you have your own thrift stores you're looking for like a

6:55

lot of inventory um so we can sell to you there so once it gets to that sorter greater thrift store owner whoever it is

7:02

who's buying 40,000 lb clothes um they're likely going to sort it themselves so the stuff that we're sending them hasn't been sorted by us

7:08

sure so they're going to sort it themselves and by you know whatever grades are make sense to them and their customers um most of that is resold as

7:16

clothing how do we know that well we ask them and then we also know that you know the prices they pay I mean if they were

7:23

just trashing it it wouldn't make any sense right so there there's obviously value in in these clothes um the sorters

7:29

and graders usually have you know for the lowest quality they have kind of the capability to um mechanically like cut

7:36

them into wipers or shred them or make them into stuffing or insulation so we don't partially do any of that like

7:42

mechanical recycling but we suspect that our our partners too yeah and so um on

7:48

the beginning side of it cuz now we're all over this place with this life cycle um this is why I'm so life is though

7:54

this is why I have so many notes that I took on like the you know A to B um but uh so like you know like I told you I'm

8:02

moving so by the time this episode comes out I would have already moved so I have like four bags of clothes in the car

8:08

which I'll bring in after which is very exciting thank you of course uh to just to add to the millions of pounds of

8:13

clothes that are here um I usually bring bags of clothes to work too which I mean it's great like I was like looking at

8:19

them for so long and I was like you know I really got to get rid of these and I was like on Friday

8:25

on I think I can't remember it was like Christmas Day or New Year's Day of those like holidays this year it's like oh

8:31

what are we doing with the kids we're going to help Z put all their like stuff away yeah um but uh okay so like when I bring

8:41

the stuff in and I'm I think it's good you know um or people can drop it in a bin which are really all over the place

8:48

I've seen the map um and they they're like all over the state all basically like all over the Northeast really right

8:54

yeah so we're across 10 states um we cover the entire state of New Jersey out of the 10 states about like a third of

9:00

our volume comes from New Jersey it's really the heart and soul of our operation um so where do we get close is

9:07

we bins like you mentioned so the zuie bins and parking lots in New Jersey our bins uh support the AmVets so you may

9:13

see an anet sticker on them um we do clothing drives we work with a lot of municipalities um because what happens

9:20

is the 85% of clothes that are ending in the wa stream are really now becoming the mun municipalities problem yeah to

9:26

to handle that material right so if we can work with them and they can tell their residents okay don't put it in

9:31

your trash don't put it in your recycling like put it in this bin uh you not only save the municipality money but

9:37

helpsy actually pays the municipality for um the clothes that they help us divert uh we do a lot of clothing drives

9:44

home pickups we work with a lot of thrift stores because they only sell usually about 25% of the clothes they

9:49

get okay um so even the large thrift stores like savers of well you know half of the stuff that comes in the door like

9:56

isn't good enough for the sales floor it's projected they're hug huge operations they have their own bailing and their own like outlets for yeah yeah

10:02

that but you know think of a smaller thrift store they don't have a warehouse in the back that's going to bail their stuff and they don't have connections to

10:08

sell 40,000 lbs of rejected clothing um but we can buy it from from them so hey will'll send the truck we'll pick up

10:14

from the back um and basically that helps them like cycle their inventory and basically get rid of you know find

10:21

better uses for the clothes that didn't sell yeah for sure um I have a question and I know that you like the AmVet stuff

10:27

you guys do also like you mentioned um when people like they have bags of

10:33

clothes and they go to you know the local supermarket or whatever and they see the bins in the a lot of times

10:38

there's like multiple bins like different like different brands of bins is that different companies sure

10:45

operator so like whether it's an operator or whether it's like bringing it directly to a nonprofit or something that like does stuff for homeless or

10:52

Outreach and like all that kind of stuff you know like how does that play into kind of like your model I guess and like

10:59

why is helps like a good spot for people to know that like where they're dropping their clothes off is a place that they

11:04

know it's going to like either find a good home or like be put given to somebody that's like that needs it so

11:10

I'm glad you brought up the nonprofits cuz that is like a very common misconception is nonprofits kind of like

11:16

thrift stores get so much volume more than they can handle and you may be well intentioned and be dropping off six bags

11:23

or or 10 bags or 20 bags or whatever to this nonprofit and maybe that nonprofit is their mission is helping people

11:29

re-enter the workforce okay so they're probably looking for like professional clothes they're probably not looking for your sweats and your t-shirts but you

11:34

just gave that to them anyways and so then they have kind of a burden of or a shortage of like labor and space to sort

11:40

through it all so they work with us too and we buy stuff for them and basically turn their unusable or you know clothing

11:48

to them that they can't uh use directly for the mission into funds to do their work got so we do work with a lot of

11:55

nonprofits last year we um through all of our nonprofit Partnerships we paid about half a million dollars um for that

12:02

so you can feel good about giving help see your close because you know that we're going to take uh Extra Care to

12:07

make sure it finds its next best youth you also know that we are supporting uh a lot of nonprofits and uh we're really

12:15

creating honorable work so all of our employees are paid living wages are all uh shareholders in the company I just

12:21

pulled the stats for last year so I'm very excited to say 70 over 73% of our Workforce is diverse uh 37% of Senior

12:28

Management is female and 37% of Senior Management were internal uh promotions or internal hires so like super cool

12:35

yeah for sure and I think like that uh because like if you if you didn't know anything about what you just mentioned

12:42

um I think like it almost has like this uh idea of like yeah just bring us your

12:48

old stuff and we're going to sell it and make money off your stuff but there it's like way deeper than that and there's like way more to it um rather than just

12:56

like secondhand fashion or whatever which is just kind of like a surface level thing like there's so much good

13:02

that happens here like help is in the name you know and it is helpful for people whether they're working here or

13:08

you know uh benefiting in whatever capacity from the services that you guys provide you know I think that's really

13:15

interesting yeah and I'll share another kind of fact going back to kind of our Workforce is um a lot of our employees

13:23

have a variable comp part of their pay so for example our drivers they get a pretty low hourly rage but then they get

13:29

paid for every single pound of clothing they bring in yeah so we just finished um awarding our top seven drivers of

13:37

last year they each brought in over a million pounds on their own wow uh which is

13:43

wild so we have a million pound club and so we had seven drivers are part of the million pound Club okay cool those uh

13:50

seven drivers earned really well our average driver earns about 70,000 a year

13:56

uh these drivers earn more and they earn every any of that and like our kind of mentality is like raah ra like yes I

14:02

want you to make more than me like work hard like do it like you literally brought in the pounds yeah um so another

14:07

way to think about it is like we are creating honorable work what does that mean roughly like 20ish bins equal

14:13

another is a full job it's a full job for somebody in the sustainable economy and that's awesome and a bin when we're

14:20

talking about bins it's like this yellow bin behind you is a b great question these are I would call these yellow

14:25

carts okay that is a good name for them very descriptive yep yellow cart on

14:31

wheels our bins um they're like the metal bins and the parking lots they're like I them actual like a drop off

14:38

exactly so every 20 or so um is a job if we're sorting the clothes then it's two

14:44

jobs sure um and we are a second chance employer intentionally so if you're

14:49

former incarcerated made a mistake whatever it is like we don't really care we just want you to work hard and if you work hard you will do well here yeah was

14:56

that like when when the three guys that that found to the company started was it like was that the model initially or did

15:02

that kind of like evolve over time to like really become like an all-encompassing like source of good

15:08

essentially yeah so that was absolutely from the get-go from when they started they were all in points in their careers where they wanted

15:15

to drop it and and switch and do something really meaningful so it's like woven into like the fabric of helpsy

15:21

yeah pun intended yeah it's well done it's like you've done this before no that just came

15:27

out uh no no I think it's I think it's super interesting because you know like this is the first type of episode that

15:33

we've done like this um like this type of business like we've had a couple

15:39

nonprofits one in particular that like does a lot of stuff for like homeless Outreach and they have like a closet

15:44

where like people can drop off stuff but they're like limited in space right um

15:49

so then what we would want to do with that closet be like okay accept any donation you can if it's not useful for

15:55

you we'll buy it from you and then you just turned in whatever you rejected into money for your for your to like

16:02

fund your mission sure that's interesting cuz we might have to might yeah um because she now she just opened

16:09

up a second one exactly do all stuff like yeah that's very common for nonprofits and thrift stores and there

16:15

are a lot of um mission-driven nonprofit thrift stores of you know so people with

16:20

the best of intentions they're like oh I'm going to take all of my kids clothes and their toys and I'm going to give it

16:26

to the nonprofit or the church cuz like they can use it and the reality is like

16:31

it's hard work to match items with like who's going to use them oh yeah for sure right because it's like okay it needs to

16:37

be in this this uh clothing all it needs to be like a Rand that's good enough it needs to be in good enough condition

16:43

also the person of that size needs to walk through my store and want it in the next two weeks otherwise I got to get

16:49

rid of it yeah which is crazy so if they have it and it's in there for 2 weeks

16:55

and nobody comes in to buy it in like two weeks they need to get rid of it do they come back to you be like here take this back yeah kind of thing and then

17:01

you just sell it again yeah basically and on our goal really with helpy source

17:06

which is like the sort of part of the business where it's like by brand and the collect side which is the collections is really like close the gap

17:13

for thrift stores like okay let us take everything you don't want we'll sort it we'll give you by brand what you want CU

17:18

that could be that could vary by you know uh geographical location or demographic like some thrift stores have

17:24

niches and they only want vintage others want more contempor whatever they want want and kind of like make that Loop and

17:30

then you know we sell them whatever they don't it didn't work we get back and just kind of like around and around we

17:36

go yeah how do you and I I'm sure this is like a lot of just like research and data and like different things like that too but like when you're putting

17:43

together like these different like you said before like uh like 40,000 lbs of

17:48

stuff or like certain brands of clothes that like people can buy you don't really know what's in the it's like a

17:54

mystery box but you know it's going to be like this brand on it um like how do you know how to break those out in those

18:01

particular ways oh that's like we have a whole team that does that so Jessica's team hi Jus was supposed to be on the

18:08

episode but you know unfortunately that's what they do is that they're really experts in in Brands and resale

18:14

and knowing how like what needs to go with what and then we also have I think it's about 6,000 uh customers who are

18:20

either uh thrift stores or resellers and it's like a constant feedback loop like and we just like pricing and based on S

18:26

rates we know like what's hot and what's not personally don't I know like three brands right yeah same I mean yeah uh

18:34

yeah because I think like that's super interesting because you know when you're dealing with just like the volume of stuff that's actually like in here to

18:40

know like okay we need to take how many millions of pounds do you say 31 31 Millions pounds of clothes a year yeah

18:47

to break that down into whatever it is so we don't sort every single pound of those 31 million okay we don't it's a

18:55

growing percentage what we sort um but you know the more that we can sort and

19:01

scale it up like you know the better basically yeah um but yeah guess how many Brands we have in our database I

19:07

don't even know cuz I know three brands you know three it might be the same three yeah it might be the same three uh

19:12

I don't know like HS yeah right um I don't know I don't even know depending on who you ask it's

19:19

either 20,000 or 200,000 why is there such a different okay we have 20,000 brands that are like significant like

19:24

we've collected more than five you know there's like a whole tale of like oh it's a brand we got one you know an

19:29

obscure brand so we have 20,000 Brands like in our database that means we have

19:35

pricing and like we know what that brand is um which is super cool so if you are

19:40

a sorter you don't need to know any Brands um because the app will tell you like exactly where it needs to go like

19:46

what uh damage levels are tolerable for each brand so for example if it's like a

19:52

lower priced brand I don't know like maybe it's like Gap well we don't really tolerate any like damage daming Gap

19:58

because basically like he going to disintegrate after that yeah yeah whereas if it was here's another brand

20:04

that I know Lulu Lon it's a more expensive brand I see if I can do one more U maybe

20:11

that tolerates like a higher level of damage because maybe like light peeling is acceptable because that brand is valuable enough that someone would buy

20:16

it again that kind of thing um so you don't need to have those tolerances or like all those combinations have they

20:21

Apple tell you exactly what to do yeah um let's see if I could do a third brand you did great two out of three is get

20:28

you all think I can't remember what that wedding dress was yeah I mean that thing I don't know either but uh yeah but I

20:35

think like so uh really like when people so there's really no like stigma on like

20:40

if I have bags of clothes I should just bring them right and so we don't want weal I just talked

20:47

about two of three brands that I know um and those are obviously like good wonderful items but we also accept

20:54

things that are a loose sock a shirt that has stains or in it because the

20:59

reality is that those items still have value as a material right um and so we

21:05

are really the experts in like taking in everything and figuring out who can use it or where it where it can go so like

21:11

you shouldn't feel um embarrassed to like drop off a bag in a bin that's like oh this has sweat stains yeah yeah right

21:17

I think like oh this is really nice they want to make sure someone gets it like we will handle it responsibly basically

21:24

so I think like that I don't know if that's like um like a a fear for people but like when they do drop off stuff you

21:31

know like if they bring stuff to like a nonprofit and they want to make sure it's like warm stuff or whatever you know like that's obviously significant

21:37

but then maybe they also don't want to drop off you know like their highing stuff on different just like a bin like

21:42

they don't know where it's going half the time or at least that's like the mindset that some people have um you

21:48

know but then obviously like knowing like if you see a helpsy bin you could almost kind of like know exactly where it's going to wind up at some point it's

21:54

going to wind up here yeah right here where we are and and know that like you know you're be you're part of like a sustainable

22:00

ecosystem and we're creating you know meaningful employment for people yeah right so it's all it's all part of that

22:06

and we're giving back to the community we just wrapped up our project warmth for this winter so out of our sort uh we

22:12

find warm winter coats and we donate them to uh nonprofits everyone that needs it so if you know anyone we're

22:18

we're about uh wrapping up for this year but it won't be long before we start looking for for donation partners for

22:25

the next winter yeah absolutely um I just looked at the time let's take our break okay and we'll come back for

22:31

Segment two we'll talk about more stuff yeah all the rest of the stuff that we haven't talked about so far um so this

22:37

is the greens for gar podcast powered by the New Jersey Lottery I'm Mike cam we're here with Lisa chanella at hpy in

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state.com all right we're back for Segment two of this episode of GRE with the Garden State powered by the New Jersey Lottery I'm your host Mike cam

24:14

we're here in eatown New Jersey at hpy with Lisa chanella Chief of Staff uh first seg we learned so much like all

24:22

about like waste and uh clothing becoming or textiles becoming the largest would you say the largest fast

24:30

growing waste stream period period stop it's doubled in like the last 20 years

24:35

yeah which is insane yeah um and all the other stuff that kind of goes into like helpsy as a whole like

24:42

what it is what you guys do who you work with um and you told me off mic that

24:49

like you haven't been doing textile recycling or you know uh sustainability

24:54

stuff like your whole career right you were doing something totally different yes in my previous career I was a

25:00

secondary math teacher okay so that's a little bit of a pivot um but one thing

25:05

that I'm very uh grateful for in my current role is that I can kind of weave that in again into the fabric into the

25:12

fabric of my job one more brand you're going to like Crush every topic we had to do today yeah one more brand okay but

25:18

so what that means in all honesty is I I really think they Outreach is a really important part of of our mission keeping

25:24

clothes out of the trash if people don't even know it's the problem like they won't even twice about it um so something that that I love to do it's a

25:31

passion project and it's a like a New Year resolution project for me a new school year was to go into schools so I

25:37

really want to partner with you know the green teens or the science teachers or the Math teachers like anyone who will have me um I'll go in and and do a

25:44

lesson I used to write Common Core uh curriculum so this week I was lucky enough to be in a school and just teach

25:50

kids about texile recycling just sharing with them some stats about how much clothes ends up in the trash how much of

25:57

the the landfill is actually full of clothes uh how many pounds per year the average person discards um it's really

26:03

eye opening and that's really how we kind of spread the message you know that clothes aren't trash yeah which is really cool and I think what we also

26:11

want to talk about too um from an education side and this is how we do a segue um education in the sense of like

26:20

like we talked a lot about the stuff at the beginning where people you know not necessarily like knowing where their

26:25

clothes go or like what to do with them when they're kind of like lived out their your own personal use of them

26:31

their life um and then kind of like you know like I said like what to do with them after uh and then when they're

26:38

buying clothes when people are buying clothes it's like you know cheaper sometimes is nice you know so like why

26:44

not just go to I don't know we don't have to name any no free ads for any of the fast casual fast casual restaurants

26:51

no no plus we reach three brands F fashion um but uh but like talk to me a little bit about that and like the

26:56

importance of education for what you guys do to make sure that people are aware of not only what you do but like

27:03

why you do it yeah so I think there there's part of why this job is so interesting is that it involves so many

27:09

different stakeholders right if we're trying to fix textile waste okay that means municipalities because that's

27:14

currently where clothes are going they're going to municipalities they're going to Municipal uh Municipal waist stream um it's also just the general

27:20

public hey there's a lot of clothes that trash don't throw it out if it's tattered like it still has a useful

27:25

purpose uh but then it's also the retailers the brands The Producers um that's another part of of of another

27:33

part of the equation I guess um so if you're trying to buy clothes the best clothes you can buy or clothes that

27:38

already exist so thrift stores are a great place to buy clothes um if you're going to buy something new like there's

27:44

no shame in buying something new but then dispose of it responsibly don't don't throw it in the trash give it to

27:49

somebody do a swap find a clothing Drive um anything like that I think they're on

27:55

average garments are worn seven times before they're discarded interesting so I don't subscribe to that I think most

28:01

men don't yeah I mean these pants have seen some days you know this I my

28:08

personal um rule of thumb is like if I've worn it seven times and I don't want it anymore I feel no shame in

28:14

getting rid of it I'll put it in a thrift store I'll put it in a hyen and just like round and around it goes I

28:20

love buying clothes from thrift stores I'm actually headed to one this afternoon oh cool yeah I'm going to Mint

28:26

Market Valerie was on our panel in October yeah so shout out to where's that one again uh she has a couple

28:32

locations I'm going to the Hoboken one oh cool so wish me luck awesome no that's great but it's like you know it

28:37

should be fashion doesn't have to be like inhibiting like you don't need to like curtail all your purchases and be

28:42

like okay these are my three pieces of clothing I'm sustainable uh it can be fun you can cycle out your wardrobe like

28:48

it just kind of do it more mindfully yeah for sure um and then like because you know we did the uh we did the panel

28:55

um like we said back in October uh but you guys do like a lot more stuff you know other panels other ways that you

29:02

kind of like Get education stuff in front of people right yeah so we are very passionate about Outreach I love

29:07

talking um so we are happy to be guest speakers at schools we're happy to talk to recycling coordinators we're happy to

29:14

host like events and tours um really anything you can think of we we pretty much say Yes um because that is really

29:21

important for people to even know that that it's a problem right and like what are things that we can do we'll collect

29:27

L we can make a really big impact yeah and what do you think uh and I know we touched on a couple over the course of

29:33

the episode so far but like when you are educating and doing Outreach and like all that kind of stuff like what do you think people are kind of like sleeping

29:41

on the most like missing the boat on or like they need the most education and awareness around uh more often than

29:48

other topics I guess any the things that people are most surprised to learn I guess I'll answer that way um people are

29:55

most surprised to learn the amount per person per year so I'll put you on the spot and have you guess okay so how many

30:01

pounds per year per person in the US are we like discarding of or just through

30:06

yeah so like one person what's average that they discard okay can I ask a question just so I can answer this

30:12

question more educationally or educated uh like is like one article of clothing

30:20

a pound they a little less we usually say it's like 75 lbs one item so it's

30:26

like roughly one pound an item okay so the average person not me like I said

30:31

that's going to discard per year mhm and knowing that you guys bring in

30:38

several million pounds you know tens of millions of pounds a year I'm going to say

30:43

like per person 75 pounds a Clos a year you're really close yeah I needed that I

30:50

needed the but yeah you had good thinking on asking a a smart question to like ground yourself to a math teacher

30:57

you know yeah I said it's like around a pound an item cuz jeans are heavier but like a pair of Patagonia Brand number

31:03

four shorts I don't know they we like an ounce yeah so it's like roughly 75 um

31:08

but it's 115 lbs of textiles per person per year wow 85% of that goes to the trash that's a really high number in

31:14

Europe it's like 47 PBS per person so they're a little further along they're further along for a couple of reasons um

31:21

Europeans are just further along in a lot of things um but a lot of that has to do with like legislation yeah so epr

31:28

so extended producer responsibility has existed in Europe um for across multiple

31:34

materials they're getting ready to do a lot of like textile um legislation I think it may have passed already but

31:41

they're just kind of more aware of that um California and New York are thinking about it they have bills that have been

31:46

proposed and like that'd be great for them to to get uh passed Massachusetts

31:51

banned textile waste in 2022 so that was a big like awareness push so we do a lot of work with municipality ities in

31:58

Massachusetts because they passed the bill um or sorry they passed the band

32:03

and so their municipalities are a little bit more motivated to find so does that mean like if people thrw clothes like

32:10

they get a fine or something is that how that operates so yeah something along those lines I don't think that you know there's an environmental police in front

32:17

of every of every household I think it's like an awareness band so we've noticed a lot of brands in

32:25

massachus okay my end of life stuff my damages my returns I used to hard in the trash I can't do that anymore can you

32:30

help us look of course we can right we'd be happy to help um but but for example

32:35

we work with the city of Boston so we collect from their residents homes we have bins there we do clothing drives

32:41

they're a great partner um for us yeah no that's awesome and then like we

32:47

talked about like legislation stuff too which I knew we wanted to kind of like touch on because like that I think helps

32:53

dictate a lot of like the stuff that you guys can do you know like the more I guess conceivably like the more clothes

33:00

you have access to the more good overall you can do for you know all the stuff that we kind of so the responsibility of

33:08

the Garment of the end of life garment is placed on the producer so a brander retailer um that really makes them have

33:17

to find solutions for their garments they can't just produce by the bajillions of pounds and then be like

33:22

all right well it'll end up where it ends up um so fashion is very unregulated it's a unregulated industry

33:28

and I think that needs to change I think we're kind of on the cusp of a lot of exciting movement um but until that

33:33

changes and you know unless they're required to make that change um we're

33:39

kind of reach working on all the other stakeholders so like the thrift stores and nonprofits and municipalities um

33:44

working with the resellers to like find good homes for for the clothes all of that's important for brands that are

33:50

kind of thinking about okay when these bills pass when I actually have to you know take responsibility for my what can

33:57

I do well he has a ton of data on Brands

34:03

condition items where it came from what state did it come from a bin did it come from a thrift store so we can also

34:09

inform a lot of their strategy like their sustainability strategy like what to actually do does a takeback program

34:14

make sense um they think they're surprised to learn how much of their

34:19

clothes we get yeah seriously yeah because I mean you know they would think that like everybody's wearing it you

34:26

know at least seven times yeah at least seven times um so it's I I find it really

34:33

interesting because like we're talking about like data and we're talking about like you just like see the scope of the place in here and it's like just like

34:40

the logistics and the um the uh technology behind a lot of the stuff that you guys are doing here has to be

34:47

like tremendous you know um so can we kind of like talk a little bit about the Sorting technology sort of um because

34:54

like you know we have the this is like filment area yeah so like we're there's

35:00

a bunch of brands on there yeah oh Edy bow I know that one Lulu juc rag okay yeah we got there's more

35:08

there's brand we could I could have been cheating the whole time like I could yeah all those but um so should be

35:13

through that a little bit because I think like that's super interesting because like we talked about you know how if you're a nonprofit or like a

35:19

local thrift story like you you're kind of limited in the stuff that you could take in from the public and a lot of

35:25

times those nonprofits donations are being sorted by volunteers yeah so then how inconsistent are their

35:32

judgment calls I'm like what they want to keep versus not okay so our sorting app we call Quick scan it was developed

35:38

in house by our Tech Team they're awesome we're super proud uh to work with them and it's been iterated and

35:44

iterated time and time and time again each time we add things to make it smarter um we do brand we do condition

35:51

and it's like okay does it have a broken zipper does it have this does it have that but it's very smart so it won't ask the sort

35:57

you know if you type in hannes or like a lower value brand it's like it doesn't matter if it's in perfect condition

36:03

because it's just not viable for resale so we'll put it in a different book got right so it's not it's only going to ask

36:08

the order to check condition for stuff that like o maybe it has a shot at being you know resell that way it's all about

36:14

efficiency and we're not wasting time um with that so that data we can like cut

36:21

it and splice it in a bunch of different ways and we can supply data for a specific brand they can do like Market

36:27

segmentation be like okay fast fashion brands uh luxury Brands Mall Brands whatever it is and like see how their

36:33

individual brand compares to those um I pulled I want to say could have been in

36:41

around October um data for what we had sorted through for a couple fast fash

36:46

fast fashion brands and then some well Brands and what was surprising was the fast fashion brands condition was better

36:53

yeah and what does that mean that means they probably wore it once or twice and then got rid of it you know what I mean it didn't have a chance to disintegrate

36:59

because you almost like no going in that like exactly you know this is I need like I need a you're like an outf for

37:05

today yeah right literally and to like you just get something cheap fast and then wear it and then disos it serves no

37:11

purpose to you after that so that's that's kind of a problem in how we think of things it's like okay clothes can't

37:18

be disposable they can't be manufactured to be disposable and they shouldn't be consumed to be disposable uh we should

37:23

generally try to buy you know higher quality items and like keep the menu still a lot that's another reason why thrift stores are fantastic because

37:30

those higher quality items they do cost more sure but like maybe buy them secondhand so they don't cost quite as

37:35

much that's like another value ad of the thrift store besides it being like super sustainable like a lot of you support

37:40

local business right and all that can the average person come to helpsy to buy

37:47

a thing or great question uh usually no okay cuz we're B2B um at a lot of our

37:52

events we do like a shop the floor and it's kind of like a freefor all yeah sure like and so those are a lot of fun

37:59

U we're doing one tomorrow and I'm like I mean lowkey I saw a couple things that I wanted yeah better get in there

38:05

exactly so maybe I'll it myself first um but usually no usually we we sell B2B so

38:11

it's like if you are a person and you want a jacket that fits your size like we're not for you yeah right uh go to

38:16

one of our thrift stores you know we work with 200 like brick and mortar thrift stores in our footprint like go to one of them yeah if someone is

38:23

listening to this episode and they're like oh I like the fact that you guys take the time and care and the

38:28

technology side of it to kind of know that like whatever these thrift stores are getting from hpy is quality stuff

38:35

that they would want is there like a place that they can go to like look at the list of partners that you guys have

38:41

like the ones Partners oh that's a great question um we have at

38:48

help.co find a bin where you can find basically drop off locations the thrift Source would show up there if you're

38:54

looking for like what do we give for St are like what do we sell or more just like you know like uh like okay I live

39:00

in I live in Morristown right now so like Morristown okay like are there Partners or there like that I know that

39:07

they're getting stuff consistently from lpsy so I know that like their stuff is going to be maybe a little bit higher

39:13

quality and I can check in on them every couple weeks to see what they're getting maybe not I'm thinking cuz I'm like we

39:18

don't actually do that yet but like that's a really good idea yeah there you go that one's that one's free uh you know I'm like yes we should you know as

39:25

long as as our partners are cool with it as even with our for our collection points they have the option to be private which means that they want to be

39:31

on on their bin but like that is a great idea yeah thank you well that's I'm glad

39:37

I came I give you an extra brand you give me a great idea yeah uh just cuz I think like that's like an interesting

39:43

way to kind of like yeah like check out our inventory it's over there yeah right and like I I do think that there is

39:49

something to be said for like you know uh you can go to like a random thrift store and never know if they're going to

39:55

have anything close to like what I would actually want or you can kind of know that they're like thrift stores are so

40:01

awesome I love going to thrift stores they all have like such a cool collection of stuff so part of the joy

40:07

of thrifting is like the hunt yeah right of course but that hunt is very disappointing if you can't find anything

40:13

in your size or like anything educated hunt yeah an educated hunt totally that's a great idea okay thank you um

40:20

yeah because I think like you know also like as we're talking about all this stuff and all the stuff that you guys are already doing um are there things

40:28

like projects and different things that you guys like obviously like this idea that I just gave you uh over the rest of

40:33

the year yeah but moving into like like other plans and things you guys are trying to like push for that maybe you're not doing right now but you want

40:40

to do um because it seems like this whole thing is just kind of like ever

40:45

evolving it's ever evolving so like what's next kind of coming yeah so something that's on the kind of the

40:52

newer side is like the brands returns and damages um like I said when this legislation happens like it's kind of

40:58

more at the Forefront of the retailers mind like we can handle like returns we

41:03

have a couple Brands um that's they're made in China but their returns get shipped directly to us so we just handle

41:09

their returns um because a lot of returns are actually a really big problem for e-commerce because it's so

41:15

expensive for them to process and like receive it back and like someone has to check it and restock it most of the time

41:21

they just get trashed yeah and so we'll not only like take them handle them responsibly but we'll also pay the brand

41:27

for depending on what it is but most of the time like there's enough value that we would actually pay uh the brand for

41:32

their clothes and then deal with responsibly handling their end of life or damages or whatever that's cool I

41:38

didn't know that that yeah so that's like something we hope to build on yeah cuz I you know I that's like something as a consumer you don't even think about

41:44

you're like doesn't fit and e-commerce has become or people you you're like okay well I'm going to buy four of the

41:50

same thing and one of these sizes is going to fit you know they're not all going to fit and then the ones that you send back they may be hand handled by

41:56

like a 3 or something or they may end up in the abyss um but those are all things

42:01

that are part of like our consumerism sure yeah um this is kind of like a little bit off book like not anything

42:08

that we discussed before during this episode so far but kind of like I'm just curious like how or why or maybe there's

42:16

just just because uh did Jersey kind of become the home for help sa yeah so I

42:23

mentioned that previously there's three it was like three main Acquisitions right Hy was the or New Jersey was the

42:29

biggest one so and most of the workforce is like somewhat local to Jersey so it's

42:35

just kind of like worked that way worked out that way yeah so this all the Sorting happens in neon town so just by

42:41

virtue of that we have more employees at this Warehouse right the other Warehouse is just to like uh like just processing

42:47

the material here like we're actually like sorting it there's like fulfillment um all of our EV most of our events are

42:53

here we do some in in New York and Massachusetts um but this beautiful space lends itself to more events I I

43:00

mean listen I told you that the when we did the panel and it's still set up over there and I think I was sitting in this

43:05

exact chair for the panel uh cuz I was all the way on the end so it was one of these two but um just like the way that

43:12

you guys have it set up and I just like the vibe cuz you're like in it yeah like this is it you can like feel it a little

43:17

bit and then even the furniture up there second hand secondhand which is really cool yeah this came from one of our

43:23

first store Partners we like we're having an event we need furniture what you got yeah so that also does lead to

43:28

another question cuz when we were walking through downstairs I saw like a teddy bear in one bin and like some

43:34

other stuff are you like like what do we do yeah what do you do with that so are

43:40

bins say clothing and shoes um people put non-clothing and shoe things in there such as

43:47

Ted um but also things like we call it brick orra which is like plastic toys or like chotsky things people put that in

43:53

their you know drop offs uh people put ELR so we get people put books we get enough

43:59

of these kind of ancillary things that like okay we're not in the business of throwing things in the trash all right let's put them all together and see if

44:05

there's a market for a gaylord or a pallet of stuffed animals then there is

44:10

um we started last year we launch uh e-w recycling because we get enough toasters

44:16

and TVs and like whatever in our bin it's like okay well I don't want to throw this in the ch right like not only

44:24

will like it cost this money but it's all kind of go against our mission um we also do plastic bag recycling so our

44:29

shorters are tearing open bags of clothing okay what do we do with all these torn bag uh we have a partner that

44:36

recycles them um so yeah like we kind of think about as much as we can what can we divert from the trash even if it's

44:42

not like our primary for sure it seems like every yeah like you said not your primary material like not clothes but

44:48

there's like still so much like ancillary things people like we get a lot of luggage yes and so we we palet

44:56

them and wrap them up and we have customers who want luggage we're like cool I mean it's not like a ton of money but it's better than throwing them out

45:02

yeah absolutely well I mean it seems like anything is better than throwing a lot of the stuff out because like even

45:08

as we were talking about before like all the stuff that you guys do with like you know like Rags or wipes or insulation or

45:14

whatever like there's so many different things that can happen with it which is kind of like then covers a lot of the

45:20

waste in other aspects of yeah so 95% of what we get we can use either as clothing or something else right what's

45:27

say the 5% wet mold contaminated yeah and then that's kind of again yeah AES

45:32

so that's another reason people sometimes are surprised to hear like please put your clothes in a plastic bag because it protects the clothing yeah um

45:39

there's plenty of plastic bags that already exist don't buy a new one right just reuse whatever plastic bags that you have and know that if we tear them

45:46

open we're going to recycle those bags um anyways awesome well this has been

45:51

great thanks I thought you did an amazing job telling there's so many there there's so much and I

45:57

knowbly missed uh probably like missed a a couple things I mean I definitely list missed 20,000 Brands I'm counting

46:05

yeah uh Nasty Gal there's one actually the first one I saw um but uh so if

46:12

people like want to learn more like where can they be where can they go to do that um social handles website

46:19

whatever you guys so um ww. help.co is our main website you can reach out at

46:25

info at help.co my personal email is Lisa help.co um I'm happy to you know talk

46:32

and answer any questions that you have uh we have a great team that's also able to answer questions and if you're just

46:37

curious um you know Reach Out keep an eye on our social media like our Instagram is helpsy and helpsy Source we

46:43

post when we have events um if you're interested in in just coming for a tour or shopping or whatever like we can set

46:50

that up uh last year we welcomed over 300 guests to our warehouse and tours

46:56

for tours and stuff like that that's awesome um and I think we can we'd be happy to have more guests this year yeah

47:02

that's amazing cuz I mean I feel like that doesn't happen a lot look behind the curtain sort of and in this industry

47:09

that's pretty rare like that level of transparency doesn't exist um you met we talked a little bit about data like

47:14

we're a little crazy about data but like if you want reports if you're a municipality work with people tell you every day that we were there we give you

47:19

reports on pickup tonnage so you can uh apply for sustainable jury like whatever it is like we're like oh yeah we'll do

47:25

that sure you want information like we're happy to help awesome awesome so I'll put the links and all those things

47:31

in the show notes people just go click on them if they do want to learn more uh and interact with you guys in some

47:36

capacity whatever that may be and also you said that there's like a map of bins that they can check out find to B uh so

47:42

if they do have stuff to drop off you don't actually have to drive it all the way to edwn I mean but can if you're you could yeah I did um I could have done

47:49

the find the bin thing and just dropped it off there and you know gave four bags to somebody to help bump up there

47:54

exactly you just that's my man drivers um but uh no I think this has been great I really

48:00

appreciate you jumping on with us today um and doing this and having me here again great thanks for coming again

48:06

absolutely I'm sure we'll see you again soon of course um so again helpy links

48:11

will be in the show notes so you can go click them check them out along with greetings for thegarden state.com which is obviously the website for the show so

48:16

you can check out all of our other great episodes that we released in 2024 uh because so far our episode list

48:22

is insane through the roof through the roof um in that fabric I am weaving the

48:27

fabric yes uh but uh but this has been the GRE to Gar podcast powered by the New Jersey Lottery I'm Mike C we were

48:34

here in edown New Jersey today at helpy with Lisa chanella thank you for listening and we'll catch you next

48:40

time to

48:47

R do you ride oh tell me before you go long way

48:55

do you want to

49:24

ride