SwagCycle aims to help make promo products a greener, more socially responsible industry.

The Massachusetts-headquartered organization’s just-released “2020 Impact Report” indicates tangible progress toward that goal.

SwagCycle offers services that center on responsibly managing the lifecycle of branded merchandise to help repurpose or recycle unwanted promotional products. Since its launch in late 2019, SwagCycle’s work has kept 60,148 items out of landfills and facilitated $168,922 in charitable donations.

Ben Grossman, SwagCycle

“Our goal is to transform the branded merchandise industry by helping companies think about product stewardship, from the brainstorming phase all the way to the rebranding stage,” said Ben Grossman, founder of SwagCycle.

As Grossman explained, a lot of branded merchandise ends up in landfills, especially after companies rebrand or get acquired. SwagCycle aims to solve this problem. Grossman and his team have built a nationwide network of charitable and recycling partners through which it works to give no-longer-wanted products a new life.

Should #Sustainability matter to the #promoproducts industry? Heck yes! Here are three reasons why(beyond the ethics of operating greener) in 90 seconds @ASI_MBell @Melissa_ASI @asicentral @SaraLav_ASI pic.twitter.com/zqvoDsfhTC

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) February 11, 2021

The top priority, said Grossman, is to facilitate donations of the products to worthy causes. For instance, SwagCycle helped a top travel company donate 1,000 obsolete 25-ounce BPA-free aluminum sport bottles to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. That organization then distributed the bottles at a community event for families in need. In another example, SwagCycle helped a publicly traded pharmaceutical company donate individually wrapped toothbrushes from an obsolete patient kit to Project Stretch, a nonprofit that provides vital dental services to children in need.

SwagCycle works directly with end-clients, as well as with promotional products distributors that want to help their customers donate or recycle merch. The recycling option comes into play when a company wants its old branded items removed from the marketplace entirely. “The most commonly requested item to be removed from circulation is apparel, and we have built an incredible national recycling network,” Grossman said. “Our largest partners are in Massachusetts, Texas and California.”

Within the last year, SwagCycle worked with a California distributor to help the company’s client, a global technology firm, funnel 1,500 T-shirts that were no longer brand-compliant to a recycling partner in the region. “The shirts were cut down and turned into painters’ rags for reuse,” Grossman said.

SwagCycle is an outgrowth of Somerville, MA-based promo distributor Grossman Marketing Group (GMG; asi/215205). “Since founding, we’ve completed 21 engagements, across 13 states and two continents,” Grossman, who is co-president of Grossman Marketing, said of SwagCycle.

For the biggest suppliers in #promoproducts, sustainability is more than a priority. It's the foundation for the future. It has bottom-line implications for everyone in promo. https://t.co/knIC8dhQQu @sanmar_corp @SandSActivewear @kooziegroup @alphabroder

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) February 9, 2021

SwagCycle is another example of the growing efforts underway within promotional products to improve sustainability within the industry, with major suppliers taking a lead.

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