Sustainable Safety Gear Starts Here: The Smart Solution to Safety Vest Waste
At SwagCycle, we love finding innovative ways to help companies keep branded merchandise and workwear out of landfills. Recently, we partnered with Stonewerx Promotional, a distributor working with a major tech company, to tackle a growing sustainability challenge: what to do with used safety vests.
These high-visibility safety vests—made from polyester, nylon, and spandex—are essential for worker safety. However, like all work gear, they eventually need replacing. Without a recycling solution, these vests often end up in landfills, where they contribute to waste and environmental pollution.
Through our partnership, we launched a vest trade-in and recycling program that allows workers to turn in their old vests when they receive new ones. Instead of being discarded, these vests are properly processed, delabeled, and recycled, giving the materials a second life as:
- Insulation materials
- Carpet padding fill
- Industrial fibers for a variety of applications
Stonewerx Promotional is dedicated to delivering high-quality branded merchandise while also helping clients navigate the environmental impact of their products. Their partnership with SwagCycle has allowed them to turn a sustainability challenge into a competitive advantage, offering clients a proven solution for responsibly managing used workwear. As Oriana Wagoner, CEO of Stonewerx Promotional, put it:
“At Stonewerx Promotional, we pride ourselves on the quality of products and services that we provide to our clients. We are also keenly aware of the impact custom products can have on our environment post-use. This awareness gives us the opportunity to creatively work with our clients to help manage their used items in a way that protects their brand integrity, while also limiting negative environmental impact. Partnering with SwagCycle is a huge win for us and our clients as we collectively work towards more sustainable practices in the promotional products industry.”
Brand Protection: A Key Part of the Process
Because these vests feature a corporate logo, protecting brand integrity is a top priority. Before any material is recycled, SwagCycle ensures proper processing to eliminate brand visibility through the following steps:
✅ Detrimming – Removing non-fabric elements such as zippers and reflective tape when necessary
✅ Delabeling – Stripping out all brand labels and tags
✅ Mutilation – Physically altering the vests to ensure they cannot be reused or resold
✅ Compression and baling – Preparing the materials for open-loop recycling
This process ensures that no branded merchandise re-enters the market, eliminating the risk of unauthorized use while keeping materials out of landfills.
Why Recycling Safety Vests Matters
The polyester, nylon, and spandex in these vests are petroleum-based materials that do not biodegrade like natural fibers. When left in landfills, they:
- Take hundreds of years to break down, releasing microplastics into the environment
- Contribute to landfill methane emissions, a leading cause of climate change
- Waste valuable resources that could be repurposed into new products
By diverting these vests from landfills, SwagCycle and Stonewerx Promotional are helping reduce waste, limit carbon emissions, and conserve raw materials—all while keeping workwear sustainable.
A Model for the Future of Promotional Products
This partnership highlights how forward-thinking companies like Stonewerx Promotional are taking action to reduce their environmental footprint. By integrating SwagCycle’s recycling capabilities into their client offerings, Stonewerx is helping businesses close the loop on their branded merchandise and workwear.
A More Sustainable Future for Safety Gear
Every product has a lifecycle. Thanks to SwagCycle and Stonewerx Promotional, safety vests can now avoid the landfill and enter a circular economy, where materials are recovered and repurposed into valuable new products.
If your company is looking for sustainable solutions for outdated branded merchandise or workwear, SwagCycle can help. Let’s work together to reduce waste, protect your brand, and maximize your environmental impact.