SuperCircle is Revolutionizing Circularity & Fashion Waste
A piece by Matthew Gutierrez, contributing writer at The Climate Optimist.
Finding An End to Fashion Waste
About 97% of sneakers end up in landfills, and nearly all our clothes eventually go in the trash -- even clothing made locally, using sustainable materials, gets thrown out.
A few years ago, Chloe Songer and Stuart Ahlum were walking home from work when Ahlum posed his friend a big question: “If we want to have the most impact possible, what would that look like?” It was the early days of sustainability in retail, when supply-chain transparency and innovative materials were in vogue. One thing became clear to them: Every product has a half life. Even a jacket resold three times will eventually hit a landfill.
“It’s great if your supply chain is transparent and you’re using innovative materials, but that doesn’t matter much if everything’s flowing to a landfill,” Ahlum says. “With a product’s end life in mind, we wanted to create a sea change in sustainability.”
Songer and Ahlum founded the minimalist sneaker label Thousand Fell, which sells everyday sneakers made from sustainable materials. With a supply chain and products designed over three years, Thousand Fell dubs itself as “the future of footwear” by turning coconut husk, sugar cane, and recycled bottles into recyclable sneakers.
Recyclable sneakers by Thousand Fell
Then Songer and Ahlum launched SuperCircle, a tech and reverse logistics platform that manages the logistics of the recycling process for brands. SuperCircle works with brands to handle the collection and sorting of items that could be recycled. Then it matches the items with textile recycling partners, which convert the consumer waste into new fibers to use in new products. SuperCircle has built numerous partnerships, including with UPS and USPS.
Singer and Ahlum spoke with The Climate Optimist about their endeavors and reasons for climate optimism. This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
When did you become environmentally conscious?
Ahlum: I’ve been working in climate advocacy for a long time. I grew up in the Bay Area in Menlo Park, California, and hiked and camped as a kid. In the 1990s, that area was the epicenter of the green movement. There were hybrids, solar panels, farmers' markets, you name it.
I joined an environmental committee in high school, working with the school district on big environmental projects. We worked closely with Stanford. I was a registered Inconvenient Truth presenter, trained by Al Gore’s team. I’d travel and present ideas. I worked with Stanford on a team to introduce environmental behavior changes among children, with the idea that they’d trickle up to their parents. I also worked on Obama’s campaign.
I spent a few years early in my career in Southeast Asia and China, where I saw how large-scale manufacturing impacted air and water quality. And I saw footwear factories. I thought, ‘There’s gotta be a better way to manufacture footwear. There’s gotta be a more thoughtful way to create products.’ That eventually evolved into SuperCircle.
How did you meet?
Ahlum: In 2014, Shanghai. We were in the same post-grad fellowship where you volunteer abroad for a year. I was in Wuhan before Wuhan was famous, and Chloe was in Thailand.
How big is your team?
Ahlum: About 25 people.
In the U.S., more than 16 million tons of textiles are tossed in the trash annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A 2021 report from the World Economic Forum identified fashion and its supply chain as the planet’s third largest polluter, after food and construction. Can you describe the clothing waste problem?
Ahlum:
Roughly 60% of clothing hits landfills within 12 months of the manufacturer’s date, a mind-boggling stat.
It’s largely a result of this fast-fashion machine we’ve built. It’s all about being on trend and affordable, which drives rapid consumption and usability over longevity. Now we’re seeing the impact on waste. Something like 15% of landfill space in the U.S. is just clothing and textiles.
And some people answer with, let’s donate to developing markets. Well, they’re now flooded with waste. It’s a huge problem, but it’s also an opportunity because there’s this great inflection point with tech that creates a viable solution. I wouldn’t have necessarily said that 20 years ago.
Songer: It’s the manufacturing-to-landfill pipeline. We’re creating so much cheap plastic clothing, it’s just hitting landfills fast. We were just at the waste expo in New Orleans, meeting senators to discuss the textile waste problem because it’s such a huge topic. It’s clogging up Los Angeles County. We’re dumping old clothes in Africa and Latin America, creating this massive downstream problem there. And countries like China have stopped accepting used clothing. We must address this problem rather than push it to the developing world.
It’s hard to believe 97% of sneakers end up in a landfill.
Songer: Only about 15% of clothing and footwear is recycled. We’re producing so much with basically nowhere for it to go.
How many pairs of shoes have you recycled?
Ahlum: About 10,000. It took us a year and a half for products to return. People have to wear shoes out, then the product flows back in, so there’s a time lag. We’ve become incredibly efficient at collecting, separating, and building out deep partnerships with recyclers and recycling infrastructure. It took a lot of work, research, and testing our supply chain to recycle everything. We can do T-shirts, jeans, athletic apparel, handbags, bedding, sheets, and comforters.
How many items have you recycled thus far?
Ahlum: We’ve recycled about 1.2 million units in the past seven months.
What's the long-term goal?
Eliminate as much clothing waste as possible. The North Star goal is to lead a sea change within retail. Recycling costs money, so you have to think about business models that fit and align incentives for the customer, the brand, our business, our operating partners, and our recyclers. It’s about finding ways to create that alignment across the whole supply chain. That’s quite difficult to do.
What clothing shopping guidance can you provide?
Songer:
There’s an argument that it’s not the consumer’s responsibility, but it kind of is. We live in a free market, and consumer choice partially drives the economy.
I tell consumers to shop at small brands that are open about impact, sourcing, and supply chain. Look at the materials your products come from. Buy natural materials when possible, such as cotton and wool. If you can’t, go for a synthetic material. Try to buy something that’s a high percentage of one fiber, like 100% cotton or 100% polyester. Try to find something with a single fiber of 85% or more because that garment is more likely to be recycled. In fast fashion, you get all these blends, which is terrible. It’s like five types of plastic blended. We can do nothing with it other than burn it or put it in the ground.
Chloe, I’ve also heard you say not to use warm water when doing laundry.
Yes. Even when you own clothing, you can minimize your impact. It’s great to keep clothes longer through mending and repairing. Don’t wash your clothes in hot water. You don’t need to. Use minimal soap. Laundry detergent today is stronger than it’s ever been.
You only need cold water, and don’t dry your clothing. Hand dry clothes when possible. It’ll also help your clothes last longer.
What makes you a climate optimist and hopeful about the future of our planet?
Songer: I might have a different answer to this every day. But today, what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, centers on youth and innovation.
We’re both climate optimists. We wouldn’t be building this if we didn’t believe we could fix this. We started Thousand Fell when we were about 24, 25. We were very young, and now we've built up two businesses and a larger team. We’ve raised venture capital. We’re traveling to conferences, meeting people, pitching, and seeing incredible innovation come down the pipeline. We just attended a conference with a team that can turn waste into hydrogen and water. There are generative A.I. technologies that will be incredible.
The innovation is really inspiring, and so much of it is youth led. We’ve had about 14 college interns, and bringing such enthusiastic young people is exciting.
“You have to be a climate optimist to go up against much of the doom and gloom out there.'“
Stuart Ahlum and Chloe Songer
