Vanderbilt recently won second place in the national Close the Loop College Cup, a clothing-recycling campaign sponsored by the activism website DoSomething.org and the discount fashion chain H&M.
The competition was a fabric and textile recycling initiative to keep clothes out of landfills by getting them into a closed-loop production cycle, in which post-consumer waste, like old clothing, is used to produce new items.
For four weeks in September, groups of students from universities across the nation collected clothes to be recycled, upcycled and repurposed.
With help from local non-profits, including Ronald McDonald House, Susan G. Komen Upper Cumberland, and CASA Nashville as well as student organizations such as SPEAR (Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Protection) and Vanderbilt Grassroots, the Vanderbilt team was able to collect donations from all over Nashville, quickly surpassing their initial goal of 4,000 collected items and ultimately reaching 20,000.
“I think winning second place says a lot about how much both Vanderbilt and the Nashville community care about sustainability and that they support the philanthropic efforts of their students as citizens,” said Vanderbilt team leader and Nashville native, Allison Quintanilla. “This campaign did a lot to help inspire students to engage in their community.”
Although DoSomething has operated clothes recycling campaigns for eight years, this year’s College Cup was the first event of its kind, with the goal of sparking competition amongst universities for the cause. More than 180,000 items were collected by the 50 participating colleges for the inaugural competition.
By Jasmine Williams