For a year now, the light green clothes-recycling boxes have been popping up on the edges of parking lots in Chicago and the suburbs. A statement on the front of the metal boxes announces that money made from the donated clothes will be used by the sponsoring organization, Gaia-Movement Living Earth Green World Action USA, to help save the planet. “With the proceeds we–on the behalf of you–instigate the ideas and some of the many practices of the protection of the living earth,” it says. Then it lists 18 projects that Gaia USA is “instigating.”
At first Lund and Nielsen got the clothes by distributing flyers near the stores, promising that if area residents put old clothes in plastic bags on their porches and stoops the group would pick them up. “It was me and another staff member doing the collecting, and it was very time-consuming,” says Nielsen. “It was OK, but small-scale.” So she and Lund switched to collection boxes.
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City law requires that such boxes be put on private property, and for a long time Nielsen had the task of persuading retailers to take them. Her first deal was with the manager of Einstein Brothers Bagels at Clark and Newport, which has had a heavily used box since last July. Owner by owner, Nielsen added locations. “The lady impressed me,” says Easter. “She seemed sincere, with her European accent, and it wasn’t like the box would cost me anything. It’s designed well. What could it hurt?” Armando Zermeno, manager of Mufflers 4 Less at Damen and Roscoe, says he and the previous store manager were charmed by Nielsen. “She stopped by, and we talked about the box,” he says. “She said it was to help poor people and the world. We try to do things for the neighborhood. It was no problem.” Domy Rathappillil, manager of a 7-Eleven at Foster and Ravenswood, saw no reason not to take one box, then two, saying, “It’s just a service for people who want to donate clothes.”
Weber assures retailers that boxes will be emptied at least once a week but as often as necessary, and he gives out a 24-hour number they can call with complaints. “Now, some people are insulted when I talk to them–like the word ‘environment’ doesn’t jibe with them,” he says. “They are earth haters or something like that. Maybe this threatens their status as human beings. There are other people who don’t respond to me at all or who say the owner isn’t in when they are clearly the owner. But most people see this as a good idea. A common response is, ‘Oh, I’ve got lots of clothes to give away myself.’”
A Scandanavian man who lives in the Chicago suburbs and wants to remain anonymous worked for the Teachers Group in 42 countries, most prominently as an IICD group leader. He says the Teachers Group has 2,000 to 5,000 hard-core members, who recruit workers and volunteers, many of them well-meaning idealists. He explains that followers subscribe to three principles: “A common economy, common time, and common decisions,” tenets that are agreed to verbally but not in writing. “We looked at ourselves as examples, as revolutionaries,” he says. “The Teachers Group is designed to function more or less according to the principles of organizing from Mao’s ‘Little Red Book.’ There’s a pyramid structure where small, self-sustaining groups do the regular work, and they each make decisions on their own. But they are controlled by people from a secret central committee.” He says his salary went into a general pot, and when he wanted to buy something he had to ask for the money. He was forced out of the organization in 1998, after he refused to accept that he and the volunteer he’d married could be forced to go on separate Teachers Group missions. “It has become a monster, where people vie for control and don’t trust each other.”
Nielsen is, however, open about Gaia USA’s finances. She says that the 2001 budget is $354,000 and that the profit for 2000 was $47,500, of which $9,500 went to repay a loan from Gaia Switzerland that was for start-up costs. The rest of the money, she says, went toward new boxes and hiring Alex Weber.
Asked if it’s fair to suggest to people dropping off clothes that the profits are going to the projects listed on the boxes, Nielsen says, “What is on the box are goals–goals of our organization.” She estimates that Gaia USA will have $100,000 to give away next year. Asked if she knows what projects will get that money, she says, “We don’t have anything concrete.” Then she adds, “I know about a project in Zambia where they use solar energy. It’s to take farmers from communal to commercial farming.”
