Popular workwear brand Carhartt has expanded its trade-in resale site, allowing customers to mail in their worn Carhartt gear.

Carhartt has expanded its resale program, allowing its customers to send in slightly worn gear via mail for store credit.

The brand, which is offered extensively in the promotional products industry, has partnered with Trove, a B Corp that helps brands like Patagonia, Levi’s and Lululemon scale their “recommerce” efforts and make their operations more circular. With the help of Trove, Carhartt is expanding its resale program Carhartt Reworked to accept mail-in trades, in addition to in-store trade-ins.

Carhartt Reworked helps to extend the life of workwear, reducing clothing waste and keeping previously worn and slightly imperfect gear out of landfills. Among the items the program accepts are outerwear, shirt jackets, bibs and overalls, hoodies, sweatshirts and pants. The Carhartt gear must be less than 10 years old, clean and in good condition, and not be altered or customized with embroidery or other decoration. Consumers whose gear meets the requirements can complete an online module on the Reworked site, then box and ship gear directly to Trove. Once the shipment is received and confirmed, they’ll receive a digital gift card for Carhartt.

“This expansion represents another milestone in the evolution of Carhartt Reworked, giving hardworking Carhartt wearers across the country the opportunity to participate,” said Gretchen R. Valade, director of sustainability at Carhartt. “With the help of Trove, this new digital trade-in method underscores our commitment to environmental impact and getting gently used gear that isn’t done working into the hands of those who need it.”

Since its initial launch with Trove less than 12 months ago, Carhartt says it has extended the life of more than 43,000 garments and kept more than 68,000 products out of landfills. The new mail-in, trade-in program will help Carhartt increase those numbers, executives said.

“This expansion will reward Carhartt customers for their loyalty while reinforcing the brand’s dedication to sustainability,” said Gayle Tait, Trove CEO. “Trove’s modular resale technology will enable Carhartt Reworked’s growth and evolution in branded resale.”

On its website, Trove said it’s on track to resell tens of millions of items by 2025, noting that collectively, its partner brands diverted more than 2 million kilograms of carbon emissions and more than 440,000 pounds of waste from landfills in 2022.

Resale programs have been growing in popularity among apparel brands, though typically, similar to Carhartt’s solution, they don’t allow consumers to send back items that have been branded with other companies’ logos. Last year, Patagonia said it was expanding its Worn Wear program to allow trade-ins of qualified styles with additional logos, using solutions to remove, repair or repurpose embroidered products.

Textile waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams, with more than 100 billion new garments produced each year, according to a McKinsey report on fast fashion. The secondhand market has also been growing, with proponents saying it has the potential to cut new clothing production. Online consignment and thrift store ThredUp noted in its annual resale report that the global secondhand market is set to reach $350 billion by 2027.

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