Q&A: Apparel Impact CEO Joe Whitten

‘It’s really just about educating the next generation. We’re in a dire time right now not to pull the alarm,’ says Apparel Impact CEO Joe Whitten. ‘We’re still throwing our clothes out, so behavior needs to change.’ (courtesy photo)

On a recent episode of NH Business Review’s “Down to Business” podcast, we got to speak with Joe Whitten, the co-founder and CEO of Apparel Impact. After spending a few years each at tech companies like Oracle, Comcast and Dyn, Whitten used his entrepreneurial skills and wherewithal to solve a problem that affects the entire globe: textile waste. Since its inception in 2014, Apparel Impact has diverted over 65 million items of clothing from entering the landfill, and also helped clothe well over 19,000 people globally.

Q. What is Apparel Impacts’ mission?

A. Apparel impact is basically the first step to diverting the fastest growing waste stream in the country. In 1991, textiles or clothing, shoes, accessories, linens, blankets were about 1% of total waste in the United States. In 2024, it’s approaching 10%.

The problem has actually grown worse, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all, primarily because of fast fashion. It’s more of a word or a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but fast fashion has really been happening for over a decade, when U.S. manufacturing companies and clothing manufacturers decided to ship jobs overseas for cheaper labor.

Because of that, and because the problem doesn’t seem to be going away, Apparel Impact and others exist to give people an opportunity to do something with their clothes. Right now, 85% of all clothes end up in the landfill. And it can take upwards of 2 to 400 years for one shirt to degrade, and it takes upwards of 750 gallons of water to make one white cotton T-shirt. So, there’s a lot of environmental hazards that come along with textiles and manufacturing.

Apparel Impact exists to give people the opportunity to divert the waste instead of throwing it out, put it in an Apparel Impact bin and recycle it or donate it. We then get it into the hands of organizations and companies that are experts in their field who can go through each piece and can sell it to a Goodwill in Pennsylvania who is short on plus-size men’s T-shirts and who needs a lot of them all at once. Or let’s get it into the hands of a vintage shop in New York City who really wants vintage T-shirts. Clothing graders are ones that can go through everything and determine its best use.

Q. Your dad served in the Air Force, and you served in the Army. Tell me about how your military career and how it informs how you run your business.

A. Other than the discipline that comes with being in the military, I think that mission drive is embedded in you. I joined at 17, graduated from West High School as a junior. I never went to college. I wasn’t a big fan of school — I never understood it. You’ll probably hear that from a lot of entrepreneurs, so that’s nothing new. So, I decided to join the Army and do something. Just the understanding that everyone is on a mission to do something and you need to complete the mission.

When you’re alone and it’s just you picking up bags of clothes, you have a mission to do, and it’s pretty easy. But when you have 40 people that work for you on a daily basis and all of them have different jobs, all of them need to understand, what is the mission today, this week, this year? Managing that is a lot easier than really not having a mission at all and not understanding how to drive towards it.

Q. And you told us you started going door to door for that mission to collect clothes.

A. A friend of mine had actually told me this idea about recycling clothes, and he had done it as a kid in California for a company. He knew I was entrepreneurial. I had worked for Oracle for quite a few years, for Comcast, and my last year in technology was actually at Dyn working for Jeremy Hitchcock. At that time, I was struggling in the sense that I’ve always been an entrepreneur; I’ve always wanted to start and run a company. And I thought it was time to find something to actually do.

After my friend told me about (his idea), I started to do research, and I did a trial run. I did pamphlets, I went door to door, hung plastic bags on people’s mailboxes, and I said, “I’ll be here next Saturday, and I’ll come and pick up the clothes and the shoes and the accessories” And that next Saturday, I picked up about 5,500 pounds of clothing. And that was a clear indication to me that there was that much clothing out there that I was hearing about. There needed to be a solution for it. So that’s basically how I started going door to door.

And now we have bins all throughout the state, and people can just drop (clothes) in.

We have about 40 employees today. Two years ago we had 19. We have 300 locations total as a company — meaning recycling bins that are placed either at municipalities or transfer stations or businesses or gas stations.

This month, we’re to reach 1,400 locations. And we service all of New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut. I acquired a company that was about to go out of business during COVID because that really affected our industry — borders were shut, retail outlets were shut — so I acquired them during COVID, saved all the jobs, and now we’re in New York as well.

Q. Where do you place these bins? What arrangements do you have with the property owners?

A. In our best scenario, we want our customer — the gas station owner or the person who owns the real estate — to understand that they’re doing something good, they’re providing a service, and it’s good for the environment. It’s good for people, but not all people think like that. They want to be compensated for it. About 30% of our customers are provided revenue share, or like a fixed lease. The other 70% either see the value or they’re municipalities where they don’t generate revenue off of it. But it’s a service we provide.

We service about 350 municipalities, towns and cities. Most of our customers are a little bit old school at Apparel Impact. I believe in handshakes. And if you don’t want to work with us, you don’t have to. No, you’re going to be in a two-year agreement, which a lot of my competitors demand of their customers.

Q. For people who are going to drop their clothes off, instead of going to a Goodwill or a Salvation Army or wherever, they might just go to a bin because it’s nearby and it’s convenient. But you also work with Goodwill and other providers to sell them clothing.

A. A lot of the thrift stores that a lot of people associate with donations — Goodwills or Savers — those chains probably keep about 20% of what you would drop off, and the other 80% goes to recyclers like Apparel Impact.

Another thing is we provide a service to the thrift chains because they can’t keep everything that’s dropped off to them. You’ve been inside some of them even around here. And there’s bags of clothes up to the ceiling. They don’t have the staff to manage it, the time to go through it. And so that’s where Apparel Impact comes in. We provide a pick-up service to free up room and make sure that clothes don’t end up in the landfill, which is the primary mission of who we are. It’s a full-circle industry.

Q. Apparel Impact also has a comic book. Can you tell us about that?

A. I love “Captain Planet.” Growing up, I literally watched Captain Planet all the time.

When you look at the data today, 85% of all clothing ends up in the landfill buried in the ground. So, who are the people that are purchasing clothes? Adults. Okay. So how do we change the behavior for future generations? Because it’s not getting any better. Well, like everything else, we need to actually educate the next generation and understand that our clothes aren’t trash. We need to start thinking about them differently. Well, how do you do that in the least boring way possible?

I told you how I wasn’t a huge fan of school, so I didn’t think that maybe a textbook for younger generations was the way to go about it. I thought maybe an entertaining comic book would be the best way, and I feel as though our approach is working.

We just released the first issue a couple of months ago. It’s more of an introduction into the idea of recycling clothes and what happens to your clothes when you recycle them, and the negative aspects of what happens to your clothes when they’re buried in the ground. It’s an introduction to the superhero team, Team Impact, which includes Major Impact and Fleetfoot and Stitcher, and the bad guy, Dr. Toxic, is getting released in the next issue.

It’s really just about educating the next generation. We’re in a dire time right now not to pull the alarm, but in reality, we do need to pull the alarm fast. Fashion is getting worse. We’re still throwing our clothes out, so behavior needs to change. And I don’t really have that much faith in our generation today. I think if we at least introduce that idea to the next generation, we’ll probably see a difference. And I feel like Team Impact and the comic books are a way to do that.

Q. When did you, as a company, decide, “let’s do a comic book”?

A. Because I was thinking about schools, because I feel as though schools are a great place to have an Apparel Impact recycling bin, I put my sales hat on and contacted a bunch of schools offering free educational material that’s actually entertaining. It provides a value; changes the way kids think about clothing. And they can actually see an Apparel Impact bin at their school. We provide classes with comic book packs that let the kids go home and tell their parents, “Your generation’s screwing it up for us. Maybe we should bring our clothes into school instead of throw it out.”

Q. How do you wish to grow in the next few years?

A. Last year, we reached 11 million pounds that we diverted from landfills. But it’s still not enough. By the end of 2026, I’d like that to be 30 million pounds. So that’s the goal as a company. What does that look like? It looks like about 1,500 to 2,000 additional locations in at least the six states that we’re in. I’d like to acquire some other competitors of mine that are maybe on the outskirts of the Northeast, maybe Pennsylvania or North Carolina or something of that nature. We’re looking at acquisitions.

We have a huge community outreach aspect to our company. My dad’s been a missionary for 40 years, so I grew up in a household where my dad was basically working for no money and traveling the world, providing medical clinics and clothing to over 40 countries. And he took me with him, which is a huge blessing. I got this from five years old going to Guatemala, seven years old, Honduras and Venezuela and Dominican and Haiti, and so that was a big part of my life.

And for Apparel Impact, that is a big part of who we are. We clothe about 4,000 people a year for free at our own outreaches as a company. Some would say it’s more than some 501(c)(3)s do. We’re very proud of that.

Part of our goal is to grow that to reach 6,000 people in the next two years. Right now, we’re approaching 4,500.

Me personally, I’m constantly focused on growth. If you’re not trying to be the biggest and the best and the brightest, I don’t know why anyone would wake up in the morning, to be honest. I just don’t relate with it. But that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m proud of the team, and I think everyone’s on the same page. Otherwise, they wouldn’t work for a crazy guy like me.