Listen to our community recycling Queen share her vision for the homeless as well as textiles. Who am I: Babita Jagnanan, I was born Guyana in South America. I have four older siblings. Growing up our family was into agriculture. My mom stayed at home, placed a strong emphasis on our education, love for culture and community. Time hop 28 yrs later I married the most amazing man John. We have two wonderful girls Sophie & Jasmine, and our son Ravi, also has world’s best dog Bella.
What do you do: I am a small business owner- Phoenix Used Clothing in Newark focused on reuse/recycling of textiles. My goal is place collection bins in high traffic locations to make it accessible for the community to deposit their textiles. These items go back into communities .Keeping textiles out of landfill is our priority.
Why do you find it important: With all the changes in the climate and environment everyone has a part to play. Recycling textiles will help to reduce our carbon footprint. Why manufacture if we can reuse. 85% of textiles ends up in landfill every year, let’s just encourage recycling. Recycling allows us the opportunity to support our community projects, like Forget Me Not Families, Code Purple & Tag Unlimited.
How did you get started: 18 years ago we were adopting our daughter Jasmine from India and my sister/mentor Shanta offered me the opportunity to work at her textile brokerage company. It was the one the best decisions I made to walk away from corporate America. I travelled in US, Canada & Mexico advocating for recycling and working on zero waste. How many people gets to make an impact on the environment & raise their kids at the same time.
