Stuff. All of us have it, and most of us get rid of it at one point or another. 

In today’s throwaway society, the life cycles of apparel, electronic goods and household items are fairly short. This leads to millions of tons of clothes, phones, computers, shoes, furniture and toys ending up in landfills each year. 

One alternative to throwing unwanted items away is to donate them to consignment shops or thrift stores. As a recycling leader in the region, Goodwill of Central Iowa is one organization that accepts a wide range of gently used goods while vowing to keep them out of the landfill. 

“Most people know us for our thrift stores, but our commitment to recycling is something we’re just as passionate about,” Jackie Norris, CEO of Goodwill of Central Iowa, said. “We’re happy to lead Central Iowa toward a more sustainable community through responsible recycling practices.” 

Last year, Goodwill of Central Iowa received over 471,000 containers of donated items and as a result diverted 20.7 million pounds, or 82%, of them from Iowa landfills.

Goodwill of Central Iowa prides itself on being a convenience in people’s lives. Donating unwanted items is easy and free: The only work required is boxing them up, loading them into a vehicle and dropping them off at a donation bay.

Behind the donation door, however, is a highly sophisticated sorting process.

Donated items are first examined for visible rips, stains and other flaws. Items that aren’t fit for sale are sent to the warehouse to be recycled or salvaged. If they pass inspection, they’re sent to one of Goodwill of Central Iowa’s 17 retail locations, where they sit on the sales floor for four weeks. If they’re not sold, they head to the Goodwill outlet store, where they’re purchased by the pound. If they’re rejected at the outlet, they’ll either get recirculated or sent to the warehouse. 

At the Goodwill of Central Iowa headquarters in Johnston, employees work to sort and bale items every day.

Per Goodwill’s mission, many of them are participants of its warehouse, packaging and logistics skills training program, which is open to anyone 18 or older who faces barriers to employment. 

Items that aren’t fit for sale are sent to “the gauntlet,” where they’re sorted into 15-20 different categories and placed into large shipping boxes called gaylords. After enough gaylords are piled up — 45 gaylords fill a semitrailer — they are then shipped off to a variety of international salvage buyers and recyclers. Books stay in the U.S. while hard toys and textiles are sent to developing countries.

Flor Can de Sanchez and Jack Carmichael load clothing into balers. The balers, which run every day, compress the items that aren’t viable for retail or weren’t sold at the retail and outlet stores. Each bale of clothing weighs roughly 1,200 pounds and is sent to a developing country.

Austin Cory and Kevin Lovering sort through a gaylord full of donated computers. Every piece of e-waste that comes through the doors, whether it be printers, keyboards, TVs, cellphones, cables or computers, is separated into a specific bin. Electronics that stand a second chance are sent to Lovering to test, wipe and refurbish and are then sold on Goodwill’s e-commerce platform, 

shopgoodwill.com. Items that are no longer usable are shipped to Ohio as part of a long-standing partnership with Dell. 

Over 24 million pounds of e-waste is generated each year in the Des Moines metro area, and 13 million pounds of e-waste ends up being recycled. Last year, Goodwill of Central Iowa led the region by keeping 309,000 pounds of e-waste out of the landfill. It is expanding its e-waste recycling program with a $30,000 grant from MidAmerican Energy Co. 

While Goodwill of Central Iowa operates under a promise to be sustainable, Carly Flaws, marketing director, said doing so comes at a price. Getting rid of a gaylord full of tube TVs responsibly, for example, can cost the organization $200. 

“As the recycling and salvage environment changes, we often have to allocate a lot of financial resources to make sure things are responsibly recycled …,” Flaws said. 

“It’s so important for donors to respect the list of items we cannot accept because of the high costs that come with responsibly recycling these items. Any money we have to spend to recycle these items is money we can’t spend supporting our mission.”

Acceptable and nonacceptable items can be found here