Too Many Clothes

How Goodwill Industries Generates Great Rewards by Baling Surplus Clothes

What comes to mind when someone mentions "Goodwill Industries?" Most likely you think of a place where you can donate clothing or household goods. Or perhaps you'll think of one of the organization's 1,950 retail stores, that sells those same items at bargain prices. But the sale of clothing through local retail outlets is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Goodwill's drive to survive and serve.

The revenue generated from the sale of donated items helps fund valuable services for people with workplace disadvantages and disabilities. Goodwill Industries provides these individuals with job training and employment services, as well as job placement opportunities and post-employment support.

In 2003, Goodwill Industries served 616,830 people in North America through its career training and employment programs. Furthermore, 230,168 people received job placement services through Goodwill. Over 99,500 of those people were actually placed in good jobs with local employers.

Today Goodwill Industries also funds its programs through the resale of surplus textiles. Donated clothing and linens that do not sell in Goodwill retail stores are sold to brokers or buyers who typically recycle or resell the items in Third World countries.

With tens of thousands of surplus textiles continually being donated to local Goodwill agencies throughout the United States, many locations have turned to a unique packaging solution — one found more readily in industrial settings than at nonprofit community support centers. Today, a great number of Goodwill branches are using large, powerful, industrial balers to compact hundreds of textile items at a time. To help achieve this monumental task, many of these Goodwill locations have turned to one of the leading manufacturers of industrial balers — American Baler Company, of Bellevue, Ohio.

Established in 1948, American Baler has manufactured more than 70,000 balers for customers worldwide — most of them engineered to meet the specific needs of the customer. Typical industrial applications include baling of scrap office paper, newspaper, old corrugated containers, plastic (PET) beverage bottles and tin cans, light non-ferrous scrap metal … even furniture, radiators and white goods. While American Baler has also produced models for baling textiles, compacting and tying whole articles of clothing without damage was a unique challenge.

"Our balers provide Goodwill with more automation and reliability than previously attained" states Roger Williams, VP of sales for American Baler Company. "Consequently, these machines are highly efficient at producing large -solid bales while using less wire, consuming less electricity, and requiring less handling per baled ton. We perfected the baling process for Goodwill Industries with specific design changes to the baler's charge box area and extrusion chamber and most important, with special training to all operators on loading and cycling." The resulting bales of clothing are easier to load, stack and ship — saving Goodwill time and labor, and maximizing their revenue.

Most Goodwill locations will load finished bales with a forklift into tractor-trailers or 40-foot shipping containers. The baled textiles end up in countries throughout the world, where they are broken down and sold to shops or relief organizations. Some items are resold as clothes and household goods; many are reprocessed into rugs and rags.

Goodwill Industries—Suncoast, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, presently uses a baler from American Baler Company to produce between 22-40 bales during an 8-14-hour day. That's over 10,000 bales annually with an average bale weight of about 1100 pounds.

According to Kym Bandy, director of acquisitions and allocations for Goodwill-Suncoast, "Buyers and brokers typically contact us looking for baled textiles. Goodwill Industries International also publishes a list of current salvage buyers active in the Goodwill system." Bandy adds, "Nationally, pricing for the last few years has been fairly stable, between $.06-$.11 per pound. Goodwill operations closer to seaports sometimes receive higher prices because the buyer has reduced shipping costs."

Bandy projects Goodwill-Suncoast's revenue from this side of the operation to reach $400-500,000 for 2004. Bandy points out that 90 percent of Goodwill-Suncoast's donated goods revenue is funneled right back into programs to support:

• Training and job placement for people with all types of employment challenges
• Work activity centers and independence training for people with disabilities
• Vehicles and transportation for people with disabilities
• Housing communities and services for people who are low-income, elderly or disabled
• Community corrections facilities and services
• An early childhood reading program for at-risk children
• Paychecks for Goodwill employees

"There are thousands of people throughout the world being employed in reprocessing these items," adds Bandy. "We're creating jobs where there are few employment opportunities." Baled textiles also result in a substantial reduction of waste. "We're very focused on our role as recyclers," states Bandy. "We do everything possible to reduce the volume of unsold donated goods that enter the landfills."

This operational success story is paralleled by many other Goodwill locations, including the Northwest Indiana agency, Goodwill Industries of Michiana, Inc., another customer of American Baler. According to Dennis Freeland, executive vice president, local Goodwill operations in South Bend and Gary, Indiana have been baling salvage clothing for over 50 years. Nearly 12,000 bales with an average weight of 1,250 pounds each are being generated annually. "Our bales are shipped to Canada, Africa, Central and South America," states Freeland.

Mark Ziegert, vice president of the Northwest Indiana branch, projects 2004 revenues at about $240,000 in Gary and nearly $460,000 in South Bend. "Proceeds from baled textiles sales and revenues from the retail stores help to fund 122 jobs in the Northwest Indiana branch of Goodwill Industries of Michiana, Inc.," says Ziegert. "Plus, they help to support our mission of providing job training and placement services for people with barriers to employment."

In addition to the Northwest Indiana branch, Goodwill Industries of Michiana, has 11 more stores including one in Niles, Michigan. Total employment is 570 employees. In 2003, 5,256 people benefited from job-training services and 851 clients were placed into competitive jobs in the community. Plus, almost 1.5 million customers were served by Goodwill Industries of Michiana, Inc.

Goodwill Industries International is a network of 207 community-based autonomous member organizations in 23 countries. The original organization was founded in Boston in 1902 by Rev. Edgar J. Helms to give less fortunate people hope, dignity, and independence through work. His philosophy was truly visionary and is as relevant today as it was 100 years ago.

His social innovation set in motion a worldwide movement that would one day become a $2.2 billion nonprofit organization. Goodwill has transformed more than 6 million lives over the course of a century — all through "the power of work."

Today the majority of Goodwill organizations bale the salvage clothing that remains from the more than 1 million tons of goods donated each year.

"Building Better Lives is not just a slogan," states Ziegert, "it is what Goodwill does every day."

For more information, please contact:

Roger Williams, VP of Sales
American Baler Company
Bellevue, OH 44811
(800) 843-7512

Dennis Freeland, Executive Vice President
Northwest Indiana, Goodwill Industries
(574) 472-7303

Michael Ann Harvey
Director, Brand Marketing and Media Relations
Goodwill Industries—Suncoast, Inc.
St. Petersburg, FL
727-523-1512