While pondering what to do with three giant bags of worn-out Latter-day Saint temple garments, Ben Larsen and his wife, Ali, came up with what initially seemed like a crazy idea: What if they could be recycled?
As lifelong practicing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they were committed to following the faith’s directions for disposing of the sacred apparel that is donned under daily attire.
Garment-wearing members “should cut out and destroy” the symbolic markings on the clothing, the General Handbook instructs, carve up the remaining fabric so it can’t be identified, and then discard it.
The one-at-a-time process is fairly labor intensive, Ben Larsen says, which can make tackling a big stack of garments daunting. Plus, almost all of the worn clothing with spiritual meaning for Latter-day Saints, he says, “ends up in a landfill.”
It’s not like members can just donate them to Deseret Industries either.
“Members may give garments and temple clothing that are in good condition to other endowed members,” the handbook explains. “Members should not give garments or ceremonial temple clothing to thrift stores, bishops’ storehouses, temples or charities.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ben and Ali Larsen recruit daughters Gwynee, Adi and Cate as they prepare shipping labels and bags to help dispose of Latter-day Saint temple garments, during an assembly process at their home in Plain City on Tuesday, March 18, 2025.
So the more Larsen thought about it, the more the northern Utah entrepreneur was drawn to the possibility of solving a problem for members as well as doing something good for the planet.
Thus, Celestial Recycling was born. And it comes at an opportune moment for the 17.2 million-member faith.
In the past six months, the church has unveiled a redesign of its garments — including full and half-slip styles for women and sleeveless versions for both sexes — that are now available in various countries. As they go on sale in the large U.S. market in late 2025 and other parts of the world, many templegoing Latter-day Saints will be opting for the new styles and looking to “retire” their old pairs.
In addition, the global faith is amping up sustainability efforts, working to preserve the Earth’s resources. On Monday, the church posted a video and an extended report on its recycling operations.
“Our goal and mission with Celestial Recycling,” the company’s website explains, “is to help all members become better stewards of this home we call Earth our Savior created for us.”
Finding a system
The first challenge, says Larsen, an attorney who lives in Plain City, was to find a way to recycle shredded textiles, given that most such operations deal only in larger pieces of cloth. Eventually, he found a couple of Utah-based concrete plants that funnel garment fragments into alternative fuel.
They use “retired garments to generate energy,” it says on the company’s website, “making it a zero-waste and renewable source of power.”
Here’s how it works: Members buy a recyclable bag — ranging from $18 to $28, depending on the size — from the company, then put the used garments inside and seal it. They either mail the bag back or drop it off at shipping sites — listed on the website — in the Salt Lake City, Provo and Ogden areas.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ben Larsen shows off how temple garments are shredded before being used to fuel for an incinerator that powers a local concrete plant as part of a new business venture, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Celestial Recycling has created a system to dispose of temple garments that honors the church's instructions but makes it easier and more sustainable.
From that point on, Larsen says, human hands will never touch the contents of that bag again.
“It is designed for direct processing in a fiber shredder, where the contents are chopped into pieces typically smaller than a U.S. quarter,” the company says. “Additionally, the bag serves as an excellent alternative fuel for cement plants, eliminating the need for any separation.”
Once sliced up, the materials “travel approximately 25 feet on a conveyor belt before being loaded onto a truck for transport to the cement plant, where they are incinerated at a staggering 2,500 degrees.”
Instead of “pulling natural gas out of the ground,” Larsen says, “now fuel is going to be powered by garments.”
The big question
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ben and Ali Larsen have created a new way to dispose of Latter-day Saint temple garments through recycling.
Every Latter-day Saint considering using this service will ask: Is this process endorsed by the church?
“The straightforward answer is no,” the company says on its website. The church “does not endorse any privately owned company.”
When asked about it Tuesday, the church had no comment.
But Larsen says he did spend a lot of time talking with Latter-day Saint leaders and administrators about the project.
“I was not going to put our membership in jeopardy for this idea,” he says. “I was not going to go forward unless I felt the church wasn’t opposed to it.”
He now believes he has had enough positive feedback from his conversations to feel confident that what Celestial Recycling is doing “meets church guidelines.”
And the first order, Larsen says, came this week from a church employee.
His dream is to have his bags and bins available at church-owned Deseret Book, which, along with the faith’s online store and distribution centers, sells temple garments. That way customers could discard old pairs at the same place they buy new ones.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ben and Ali Larsen recruit daughters Cate, Adi and Gwynee as they prepare shipping labels and bags to help recycle Latter-day Saint temple garments.
For her part, Rachel Gerber, who directs Instagram’s LDS Changemakers account, is thrilled with the garment recycling concept and wishes it would have been available sooner.
“I love the cotton stretch style, but I feel wasteful whenever I dispose of them and have looked for other ways to extend the use of the fabric in the past,” she writes in a message. “But doing things like using garment pieces as cleaning cloths feels irreverent to me.”
Members are urged “to replace the cotton stretch style once a year because the screen-printed markings fade,” Gerber says. “It would be amazing to see this service expanded internationally.”
And she applauds “any attempt by Latter-day Saints to make our religious practice more environmentally sustainable.”
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