Our weekly prompt'd series features single question interviews with creatives, friends, business owners, and fascinating people. Every week, we will prompt someone and share our guest’s response, along with pictures that they shared with us that are related to the response.
Join us on the journey of curiosity and learning about the people around us. We hope you enjoy these short interviews, learn something new and use the prompts to find out something more about someone in your life.
This week, we prompt'd Laura Halley, owner of Revive Athletics. At Revive Athletics, Laura is leading the way in creating an affordable and sustainable way to shop high quality athletic wear that is both good for you and those (plants, animals & people) around you!
Prompt: If you could invent anything, what would it be?
Laura: A proper textile recycling machine/center! I had NO IDEA prior to starting my store how challenging, er NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, it is to recycle clothes that are at the end of their life. We are very selective with the clothes we purchase for resale in the store and then we offer to donate the clothes we cannot purchase from customers. Some of the items are in decent condition and are suitable for donation. Others may have holes or stains and we are just as selective about which clothes are donated as we are about what we purchase. We don't want to make our trash someone else's problem and just because someone needs donated clothing does not mean they should have to wear stained or damaged clothes.
What we do with the items beyond that gets a little trickier. Some of the material is salvageable and we make scrunchies and headbands from that, but that is a very small percentage of what is left over. The rest I truthfully have not found a solution for and if someone knows of a proper way to dispose of these items or wants to create something PLEASE let me know. I'm very interested. :)