How to Donate Your Gently Used Outdoor Gear

As summer winds to a close and whispers of fall fill the air, you may be unpacking and sorting through the upcoming season’s gear, preparing for cooler months ahead. After looking through tents, down jackets, hiking boots and headlamps, maybe you realize you picked up a duplicate on a whim since last fall, or maybe you’ve found an upgrade you’d rather use this season. Whatever the reason for excess outdoor gear may be, there’s a useful and pragmatic solution to cleaning out your gear closet, and helping someone else in need: donating your gently-used outdoor gear.

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Thanks to the internet, the outdoor community is now more connected than ever — and with that connection, comes more opportunities to donate gear to a wider variety of enthusiasts that either don’t have access to goods, or can’t afford brand-new options.

Should I donate my used gear?

As long as it’s in usable condition, donating your gently-used outdoor gear is a sustainable, easy and beneficial option to give unwanted or unused products a new life. You can sell your outdoor gear, sure, but donating gives to kids and adults in need, and can inspire more folks to get outdoors by removing price as the barrier to entry.

Recycling vs. Donating Used Outdoor Gear

There’s a difference between donating and recycling outdoor gear: donating gear means passing it on to another individual or organization that will continue to use your unwanted items, giving them a second life. Recycling gear means giving it to an authorized center that reprocesses old items into raw materials to be re-integrated back into the product life cycle.

There are some used outdoor gear items that shouldn’t be donated: old climbing rope, for example, poses a safety hazard and should be sent to a recycling center rather than passed along for further use. Plenty of outdoor gear can be recycled, though: programs like Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe and Nike Grind Programs, Earth911 Recycling Search andGreen Guru’s Recycling Program, among many others, work to recycle trail running shoes, wetsuits, tents, outdoor apparel and footwear for future use.

Here are some of the top programs for donating gently used outdoor gear, as well as some handy tips and tricks for prepping and sending your goods.

Used Gear Donation Programs

Outdoors for All

Outdoors for All

Founded in 1979, Outdoors for All’s mission is to “enrich the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities through outdoor recreation”. You can support that mission by participating in the Gear Up, Give Back program, which is supported by Outside Online and Gear Fix. Here’s how it works:

Visit Outside’s website, where you can print a free shipping label. Then, send your products to Gear Fix, which cleans them up, does any repair work and sends them to people who will give the products a second life. Cairn and Gear Fix both match the net proceeds and donate the funds to Outdoors for All, giving even more good to the outdoor community.

Gear Forward

Gear Forward

This non-profit’s sole mission is to outfit the next generation of outdoor explorers by outfitting kids and young adults with the necessary gear to get outside. You can ship your used gear directly to the organiation’s headquarters by filling out this form, or if you want to save shipping costs, you can use their network of Gear Forward State Facebook groups to coordinate a local gear drop to a non-profit nearby.

Teens to Trails

Teens to Trails

Teens to Trails connects young adults in Maine with the outdoors, and works with schools and students to create meaningful experiences in the natural world. The nonprofit provides training, financial support and resources to adults and student leaders, and offers everything from grants to programming for school outdoor clubs.

Teens to Trails needs items like outdoor clothing and backpacking and camping gear: if you have any extra, you can fill out the donation form, plan a pick-up/ drop-off in the Maine area, or coordinate a shipping label to send your lightly-used items in.

REI Co-op Trade-In

REI

REI has developed a program for its members to trade-in used gear for an REI giftcard loaded with credit from the donation. The process is simple: search for your item on the company’s Trade-In database. If it’s eligible for trade-in, the amount you’ll get in credit will be listed. You can either ship your goods for $6, or bring the eligible gear into your local REI.

Outward Bound

Outward Bound

Help support the youth of the Bay Area by donating gently used or new gear through Outward Bound California, a nonprofit organization that works to provide education to both students and adults. You can help outfit Bay Area youth from Outward Bound’s partner schools and nonprofits with the outdoor gear they’ll need on Outward Bound excursions.

How to prepare gear for donation

Clean it up

Wash all apparel, sleeping bags and soft goods before packing them up for shipping. Dust off footwear, tents and hard goods before sending them off, as well.

Make sure it works

Rips, tears, zipper malfunctions and stains can all be repaired, but if your outdoor gear is beyond the point of repair or is unsalvageable, you’ll want to go the recycling route, rather than donating.

Package it properly

Make sure the container you’re sending outdoor gear in is sturdy, sealed tightly and has the shipping address clearly printed before sending. Many donation programs will have pre-printed labels for shipping, but if not, consider getting a tracking number for your package to make sure it gets to its final destination.

This story only touches the surface of available outdoor gear donation and recycling programs. If you have another organization, non-profit or method of repurposing outdoor gear, please tell us in the comments below.

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