Why you should love Nordstrom…even if you NEVER shop there

Before terms like “environmentally conscious” “social conscious retailing” or “sustainabilty” became popular retail buzzwords, Nordstrom was doing it without alot of fanfare about it, but because it was the right thing to do. Here is proof:

It used to be standard policy for retailers to throw their unwanted mannequins in the trash when they remodeled stores. Tons of mannequins went to the garbage and ended up in landfills. When Mannequin Madness started in 2001, we provided retailers with an environmentally friendly alternative to this practice.

We encouraged retailers to let us recycle their mannequins – we would even take their broken or damaged mannequins. We contacted a long list of retailers and the Nordstrom store in San Francisco was our first retail client. It took a while for other retailers to catch on so we are very grateful for Nordstrom taking the lead before it became trendy for retailers to tout their environmental initiatives.

Since then we have recycled mannequins for all the Nordstrom stores in the SF Bay area, as well as their stores in Sacramento, San Diego, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Keeping bulky mannequins – which are made of non-biodegrable materials – from out of landfills benefits everyone. So even if you never shop at Nordstrom (but we sure hope you do) you should love them because the long standing environmental policies have indirectly benefitted you.

Mannequin Madness  recycles over 100,000 pounds of mannequins a year and we could not do this without the support of major retailers such as Nordstrom.

Last month we visited Amy Parsons, the visuals manager at Nordstrom in the San Francisco Centre. This location is one of their flagship stores so there is alot of turnover in mannequins. And the visuals department consistently calls us to recycle the mannequins they no longer need.

Amy Parsons, Visuals Manager Nordstrom SF

We presented Amy with our 2010 Environmental Excellence Award to recognize her department for all the mannequin recycling they have done over the years. In fact, Amy has a degree in environmental sciences so she has a “green consciousness” in addition to her skills at visual merchandising.

Nordstrom Receives Environmental Excellence Award from Mannequin Madness

We are trying to encourage Nordstrom and other retail chains to implement a corporate-wide policy for mannequin recycling. Currently it is primarily the west coast stores of retail chains that are most pro-active in their mannequin recycling efforts.  Bebe and Nike are two chains that Mannequin Madness has worked with on a national level to recycle their mannequins. So those are two other stores we want you to love, even if you don’t shop there. If every retailer recycled their mannequins it would reduce the environmental footprint of the retail industry significantly.

Mannequin Madness can be reached at 510 444 0650 or email at sales@mannequinmadness.com