KNOFcycle

Good quality clothes often end up amongst household waste or piles of dirty, mouldy clothes. Clothes collected in Slovenia through the recycling container system are mainly exported to large rag houses. Although most donors think these clothes go to charity, most of them end up in wild landfills in low-income countries. 

KNOFcycle separates and collects used high quality garments. As a result, we have reduced waste of the collected used garments from 70% to 10%. We reuse and recycle 98% locally, and nothing is sent abroad. Our donors are rewarded if they donate good quality clothes, so they are likelier not to buy cheap, fast-fashion. 

Supermarkets and international retailers were asked to partner with the project. We were awarded 2 small start-up investments from two utility companies partnering with us. We connected with 5 companies to distribute KNOFcycle boxes amongst their employees and plan to distribute 1,000 boxes by summer. Within 1 year, we plan to expand the KNOFcycle system to Croatia with our partner Humana Nova. 

Within 4 months, 50 test users were acquired, who ordered a KNOFcycle box. During this time, 16 boxes were received and 591 garments have been collected, of which we gave 33 items for recycling (5.5%), and most of the clothes were sold and reused in our shops (94.5%). By summer 2024, we plan to collect and reuse about 8.5 tonnes of quality clothing. We also create jobs for people with disabilities, Roma, and immigrants. 

The entire system of communication, quality assurance, customer rewards, logistics, design, and retail will be transferred first to Croatia. This was made possible by our partner organisation, which collects and recycles 100 tons of low-quality clothes per year but sees an opportunity in the KNOFcycle system for a smart, easy way to reuse and sell high-quality used clothes.