By Caleigh Wells for KCRW.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Chanalisa Sera navigates a forklift around hundreds of boxes of clothes in a Commerce warehouse. Some are tattered and worn out, others haven’t been used at all. Her job: to keep them from going to a landfill.

Sera works for Homeboy Threads, a new for-profit arm of the mission-driven organization that rehabilitates and trains formerly gang-affiliated and incarcerated people.

“I learned the forklift, I learned how to input weights and data entry into the computers,” Sera says of her job. “I learned how to sell things online, on e-com. I never, never in my life thought I would know how to do any of that stuff.”

Sera started as a trainee with Homeboy Industries a year and a half ago and became the first full-time employee at Homeboy Threads. Now she supervises the next cohort of trainees and teaches them what she’s learned.

The trucks bringing in loads of clothes for Sera to sort are filled with company inventory that didn’t sell, rolls of fabric that didn’t get used, or worn materials that customers returned to the store.

Homeboy can profit in a few ways: They can just sort the clothes for a company and hand them back; fix or sew new clothes and sell them; sell the raw materials to be recycled into a new medium, such as insulation. 

Homeboy Threads CEO Chris Zwicke explains it’s a labor-intensive process: “Sorting out all the different pieces: what's used, what could be resold, what needs to be repaired, or what's completely beyond salvage and needs to be recycled.”

Some of the clothes in the warehouse belong to the clothing company GUESS. It worked with Homeboy for more than a year in a pilot project before it publicly announced its launch last week. 

“Initially we started the pilot with store returns, damages, irregular product,” explains Director of Brand Partnerships Nicolai Marciano. “Since the launch of our pilot program in December 2021, Homeboy’s received over 200,000 pounds of garments to avoid ending up in landfill.”

Textiles are California’s fastest growing landfill waste. U.S. consumers toss about 81 pounds of clothes every year, and buy a new piece of clothing every five or six days. That’s about five times as much as we were buying 40 years ago. 

But Zwicke says he’s seeing more consumers and companies who want to know where their unsellable clothes are ending up. “Corporations are more sensitive to the idea now that there is no ‘away’ when you throw something away. It's actually going somewhere.”

Homeboy Threads is coming online just in time. California politicians introduced a bill this year called the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2023, which would require producers to figure out how to collect and recycle reusable clothes and textiles. That means there could be a spike in demand for authorized collectors to do all that sorting and repair for companies.

“It's a gap in the market that we've seen, and that we're filling kind of with our workforce development mission,” says Zwicke. “We're here to create jobs, and there's a lot of kind of manual work that goes into what we do.”



Caleigh Wells wrote this article for KCRW.


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A cleaner environment through less waste is the goal of a new state organization, the Indiana Composting Council.

The council will enlist individuals, schools, businesses and farmers to help bring more organic waste diversion and sustainable soil building to Indiana.

Gowri Somasundaram, president of the council, explained compost starts with decomposed organic matter from food waste and grass clippings to shredded paper. When combined with air and water, the items break down into nutrient-rich soil, while minimizing plant diseases.

She pointed out it benefits the climate, too.

"Organic waste is the majority of the waste that emits greenhouse gas," Somasundaram explained. "Which in turn is tied up with the climate and climate change, and other emissions that comes out of the landfill."

An uptick in composting means more storage facilities will be needed. Recycling station owners must register with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and obey regulations about design, location, operation, dust, odor, noise and pathogen control. And the buildings are required to submit yearly updates on the quantity and type of materials processed. Indiana has 15 recycling centers.

The Indiana University Environmental Institute lists coffee grounds, fruits, vegetables and eggshells as ideal for lowering household trash output and minimizing clogged kitchen drains by composting instead. And people can avoid buying expensive chemical lawn fertilizers by using the healthier soil composting produces.

Somasundaram noted there are plenty of ways to get more involved, even for those who are unsure they can make a difference.

"If there is a good support from the community by giving their attendance and asking us the right questions, that is going to help to do the composting in the right way," Somasundaram asserted.

She pointed out the council is looking forward to affecting the state by reimagining waste not as an end but as a beginning. She added they will help promote sustainability and the circular economy of the organics industry through education and programming.


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California receives high marks in a report on the fight against plastic pollution. This is Plastic-free July and the United States of Plastics report, from Ocean Conservancy, awards the Golden State a score of four-and-a-half out of five.

Report co-author Anja Brandon, director of plastics policy with Ocean Conservancy, largely credits Senate Bill 54, California's landmark law passed in 2022.

"It holds plastic and other packaging producers financially responsible for managing their wasteful products. And it requires that producers make 25% less single-use plastics by 2032," she said.

The state also banned most plastic grocery bags a few years ago. Starting next year, the thicker plastic bags now sold at checkout stands will also go away. Shoppers will have to go back to using paper bags or bring reusable cloth bags.

Brandon noted California still has more work to do, adding the state has been slow to implement SB 54's ban on expanded polystyrene foam, which was supposed to take effect last January.

"The state agencies finally issued guidance and an enforcement portal, literally this week. So it's seven months late, but they are finally getting around to enforcing that critical component of the law," she continued.

The report also found California is the only state with a law directly addressing pollution from pellets used to manufacture plastics.


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California companies making compostable packaging materials said their products could make a huge dent in the problem of plastic pollution but only with changes to state and federal policy.

California passed Senate Bill 54 in 2022. It requires single-use packaging and plastic foodware to be either recyclable or compostable by 2032. The issue is with a companion bill, Assembly Bill 1201, which said compostable materials must be certified organic.

John Felts, cofounder and CEO of Santa Cruz-based Cruz Foam, which makes compostable packaging foam from food waste, said the requirement is a tall order.

"The idea that all compostable packaging would have to comply, would effectively remove compostable packaging from being viable," Felts explained. "The cost, the tracking, making a fully certified organic packaging material is nearly impossible."

The organic requirement is set to go into effect Jan. 1, but negotiations are underway in Sacramento to delay implementation, a move also supported by the plastics industry. Environmental advocates said plastic waste is choking the planet, disrupting marine ecosystems, and endangering human health, so recycling, reusable containers and compostable packaging are key.

It is estimated 40% of plastic produced today is used to make packaging, much of which is used once.

Julia Marsh, cofounder and CEO of San Leandro-based Sway, which uses seaweed to make flexible packaging, said plastic use is only increasing.

"About 5 trillion bags, wrappers and pouches are produced every year; 11 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean every year," Marsh pointed out. "That number is expected to triple by 2040, if production rates continue as is."

Advocates would also like the National Organic Program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to broaden the term "organic" to include certified compostable materials.


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