Frequently Asked Questions
Steps to our process
Arrival of clothing
Day of the drive
We fill up the truck
A percentage of the amount made from the used clothing and linens you give to the Super Recyclers is given to the school, child care center or cause that you support. The amount is calculated from the accumulated weight at a pre-determined rate. The rest goes towards collecting and sorting the accumulated clothing, as well as storage and payment of our employees. The adventure is financially riskier for the Super Recyclers, because the community usually donates their clothing to organizations or thrift stores, while we pay an amount directly to the school or daycare.
This operation to recover clothing, bedding, shoes and small toys in good condition is organized with the goal of reusing and redistributing them. The Super Recyclers have developed partnerships with several local and international organizations and designers (see logos on the home page). Quality clothing is distributed in Quebec and the rest is exported for transformation. Lesser quality clothing is recycled. Very dirty and soiled clothes as well as broken or faded toys will be removed before the weighing.
We are the only business in this field offering a concrete turnkey solution to help fund schools and child care centers with no implementation costs for them. You only have to choose a date for the drive and we will provide you with all the material to inform the parents of what it’s all about. The simple process for both you and the parents, as well as the fact that they directly help the school, are the main sources of motivation for parents to dispose of clothing, textiles and toys they no longer need. Our commitment to giving back to the community is central to our social mission.
Yes. Our business model is based on the principles of philanthropy: making a living while giving back to the community. On top of the money that we give directly to schools or partner organizations, we make sure to keep up to 10% of the clothes we collect for those who need it the most and for Quebec designers. Used linens and textiles carry a certain value on the market and we want to give a percentage of that value directly to schools/child care centers or to social organizations so that they can benefit directly from it. We display our brand with all our partners. Our message is clear: we collect in order to give back to a cause.
Absolutely! What you get out of it will depend largely on how well you mobilize your resources and your network and how much internal promotion you do. However, as this is a turnkey project, it won’t cost you anything to try and the benefits can be great. This project was designed in part to provide financial support to schools/child care centers and social causes, but also to educate people about the importance of philanthropy and mutual aid. If the financial side did not turn out as great as you had hoped for, you can still enjoy the project as an awareness-building tool.
On average, a child care center collects 650 kg of clothing, or about $ 170 per drive. Some institutions raise 800 kg twice a year and get $ 400 to fund projects. The most impressive drive was that of the Saint-Hugues CPE Enfant-Lumière, which collected more than 1700 kg of clothing, more than $ 500 in a single drive! In the case of schools, the figures vary between 400 kg and 3000 kg, or between $ 100 and $ 900 for a drive. The most impressive drive for a school is Stanislas College with 3057 kg in one drive!
Yes, once you have booked a date for the drive, we will send you several promotional pieces, such as posters and leaflets, to help you promote and organize it. In order to keep the process simple for you, our truck will pass by to collect the clothing and linen at a pre-arranged time. Several schools and child care centers really appreciate our idea because they do not have any space to store clothing.
You can have a separate clothing drive where you work and bring the collected clothes to the school or child care center on the day of the drive. If quantities are large enough, we might even be able to send our trucks directly to your workplace and add the accumulated weight to that of the school or child care center. Contact us for more information.
Yes. We highly encourage the schools and child care centers to choose a concrete project to fund. It’s much easier to mobilize your network and the business community around a specific project. The project will be described on your personal page on the Super Recycler’s website, one of the tools we offer to help you promote the drive within your community. We do not need to approve the project you choose. The Super Recyclers and their partners have also created a $1000 Super Recycler grant that will be awarded to a participating school each year and a $500 grant that will be awarded to a child care centre.
All the clothing/linen collected is weighed and a report is sent to you a few days later. We provide photographic evidence when weighing and send a copy of the photos showing the weight to the school or child care center.
No. Anything that the Super Recyclers picks up must be reusable. We collect used and even worn out clothing that can be handed over to causes, sold to second-hand shops or exported. We can no longer take pillows, single socks or shoes, trousers or tops with holes or stained with paint, as they can not be reused and we are not able to recycle them properly for the moment and don’t do waste management.
So-called “sorted or institutional” clothes, as we call them in our field (clothes coming from thrift stores) or very dirty clothes are not accepted.
This decision stems from the fact that our partners ask us for second-life clothes and refuse clothes from thrift stores. We prefer to ask schools to maintain a minimum of quality in the clothes they give us so that we can keep the advantageous price we give them for collections.
All second-life clothing, handbags, scarves, hats, gloves, fur, footwear, sheets, towels, curtains, fabrics, trimmings, leather accessories.
Household items such as pillows, crockery, carpets, frames, hangers, ornaments, toys (except for stuffed toys or toys in good condition that can be donated to organizations), skates or televisions, cannot be accepted. However, we have developed a partnership with Ramasse.ca and Recycle Junk who can help you with items like those.
Pay special attention to the weight of the bags. It is important that the textiles are placed in plastic bags, like garbage bags, to facilitate transport and weighing. In addition, make sure the bags are reasonably light in order to facilitate the work of our team members, who have to pick up many bags every day… If your students are not able to lift a bag, it is best to make two bags. A little trick to pass on to the parents who participate: they can fill their old pillowcases with used clothes to recycle everything at the same time!