Open Door Mission Makes the Switch from Plastic Gloves to Eco Gloves 

While disposable glove use is common in the healthcare, hospitality and educational industries, one can’t forget the many uses it has for community care and public assistance organizations like Open Door Mission. Open Door Mission is a non-profit Rescue Shelter, Food Pantry, Code Blue Shelter, and Clothing Pantry that’s a source of life transportation to break the cycle of poverty for many down on their luck in Glens Falls, New York. For Open Door Mission the use of gloves brings about help in food preparation, handling of cleaning, and a myriad of other tasks that require contact with people or personal equipment. 

A Conscious and Eco-Minded Non-Profit

Aside from caring for the immediate needs of their community, this shelter is doing its part to care for the environment. “We try to be conscious and mindful of our impact on the community as well as the environment.  We recycle, compost, use environmentally friendly products,” said Matthew, Director of Corporate Relations & Events at Open Door Mission. This non-profit has adopted eco-friendly practices like committing to only using eco-friendly laundry products, compostable dinnerware and flatware. They also have been working with a worm farm for composting since 2021 and have diverted 7,176.5 pounds of food waste from landfills. 

Making the Switch to Compostable Gloves 

While the organization has tried to adopt as many eco-friendly practices as possible, they still had one area that they wanted to improve in–breaking away from the use of polluting plastic gloves and turning to compostable alternatives. “We want to help our guests and residents break the cycle of poverty and homelessness while creating the least environmental impact as possible through the use of composting and compostable products,” explained the Director. Open Door Mission was going through 500-700 gloves per month and they knew they had to make a change. “I’m sure it comes as no surprise that a mission uses a lot of gloves for food prep and handling of other personnel equipment, especially through the pandemic,” said the Director. That’s when they turned to Eco Gloves to make the switch to compostable gloves. 

An Eco-Friendly Future

Today Open Door Mission uses Eco Gloves for food preparation and handling, serving food, bag inspections, cleaning and special events. They have found the gloves have made a world of difference in their environmental impact since. But Open Door Mission’s work and care for the environment doesn’t stop there, they still have plans to do more. “We want to replace all disposable products with eco-friendly alternatives at all organizations with composting and renewable resources,” said Matthew. With organizations like Open Door Mission making eco-minded purchases and eco-friendly switches like this, there’s hope that all organizations may follow suit in years to come. 

To learn more about how you can support Open Door Mission, visit www.opendoor-ny.org.