Leah Payne

I was so excited to learn about a brand-new Vancouver company that offers a creative Zero Waste solution for dressing fast-growing babies. It’s called Tradle and I just know local parents are going to love it! Please note that this post is sponsored by Tradle.

Here’s how it works

Expecting parents (or their family, friends, or colleagues) buy a Tradle membership. There are several options including a recurring monthly membership (that parents might choose) and 3-, 6-, and 12-month memberships (that are perfect options for gift-givers).

Once they have a membership, parents choose a clothing bundle that includes everything a baby needs on a day-to-day basis. When the baby grows out of the clothes, or the season changes, the parents contact Tradle. Tradle sends another clothing bundle and the parents return the first one. Parents can repeat as often as needed, on a timeline that suits them, because every baby grows at a different rate (they’re unpredictable that way!).

Tradle has partnered with some of the best local children’s clothing brands including Simply Merino, Jax + Lennon, Haven Kids, Parade, and Soft Soul. They also strive to ensure that everything is made with natural and organic fibres. The membership prices are reasonable given the quality of the clothing. Parents can also save money by signing up for bundles consisting of gently used or community-donated clothing.

Why Tradle is good for families and the planet

Babies often arrive with a lot of unneeded clutter. Unfortunately, this stuff is hard to get rid of because there are way more baby clothes in the world than there are babies to wear them.

Plus, this stuff is trashing the planet! We’re consuming way too much of everything—especially clothes. The average person sends 4.4 lbs of trash to the landfill every day. Globally, 80% of discarded textiles end up in a landfill while only 20% are reused or recycled. Even worse, less than 1% of clothing actually gets recycled (stats from Tradle). Our facilities just aren’t set up for disposing of clothes and textiles.

It’s Tradle’s mission to provide a Zero Waste solution for baby clothing and to make it easier for families to produce less garbage. Tradle advocates for owning fewer clothes, choosing secondhand first and wearing and sharing clothing responsibly. Plus, Tradle partners with brands that share its commitment to sustainability!

A Tradle baby clothing membership is a gift parents will love and it keeps giving as baby grows.

In fact, Tradle was founded by friends who were searching for a meaningful and sustainable gift for new parents. They wanted something that would make parents’ lives easier, not burden them with having to dispose of unneeded baby gear. Most importantly, they wanted something that empowered the parents to do what matters most—spend as much time as possible with their family and friends.

There’s a lot to do when a family is expecting. Spending time shopping for expensive clothes a baby will quickly outgrow, or sorting through piles of hand-me-downs, need not be on a new parent’s to-do list.

A little Q&A with Tradle’s founder Blyth Gill

1. What inspired you to create Tradle?

The long version: I did some environmental consulting for a few years after university, and slowly became frustrated because it was a very reactive industry, cleaning up messes and pollution after they had already happened. I wanted to be more on the proactive side to prevent waste and pollution from being created in the first place. The “Story of Stuff’” video by Annie Leonard and the book “Cradle-to-Cradle” by Michael Braungart and William McDonough were eye-openers for me and I immediately felt drawn towards this system, this new Circular Economy.

2. Why is Tradle the perfect gift for new parents?

We believe this is the ideal gift for parents who love and appreciate the incredible support and generosity of their friends, family, and support network, but who might not want to feel overwhelmed with gifts and stuff that gets used for a very short period of time. It’s also a nice gift for parents with limited space or parents who are living a little more minimalist, low or zero-waste lifestyle. It’s an easy option for parents too, if they want to nudge their friends, family, or colleagues who might not know what Mom’s style is, but like supporting local brands with quality, stylish clothes. We hope this long-term, meaningful gift-that-keeps-on-growing will be just as fun for the gifting community as for the parents.

3. What do you most want parents and potential customers to know about Tradle?

We want people to know that Tradle isn’t just about clothes. Even though we strive to always provide new parents with peace-of-mind, support, and confidence in knowing they’ll always have the right amount of clothes, in the right size and season for a baby’s day-to-day needs, Tradle is a community. It’s a strong, inclusive community that’s changing an unsustainable clothing system. A community wants to provide every parent with top-quality products for today, without compromising a healthy planet for tomorrow.

4. You’re a very new company! Where would you like to be one year from now?

We’d love to be helping families, brands, and communities all across Canada. We don’t want this to be just in Vancouver or in urban areas, but available to all parents looking to join a mission-driven community working to support new families, progressive local brands, and products designed for Zero Waste and the circular economy. We want to inspire and work with more companies designing quality products made from healthy, sustainable materials; designed for durability, reusability and reparability; and designed with responsible end-of-life solutions so there’s zero waste.

5. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Starting a new business is somewhat like starting a new family in that we feel like we really don’t know what the heck we’re doing! But we’re lucky to have incredible women leaders on the Tradle team: current and expecting moms, women entrepreneurs, and business leaders. These creative and technical women are all driven to figure out how to grow and make this work.

Give Tradle!

Use code LEAH25 for 25% off any Tradle membership. Follow them on Instagram and watch out for monthly contests with membership giveaways. Also, check out the giveaway happening on my Instagram page right now! [Giveaway now closed]

You can purchase a membership on their website.

Sponsored post. All photos courtesy of Tradle.