A new line from Merry Go Rounds
Every year, more than 100,000 children's items pass through our two Boston-area stores. Roundabouts turn the ones we can't resell into heirloom home goods — poufs, pregnancy pillows, and stuffed animals — filled with the textiles that raised our community's kids.
The problem
About 60% of what we take in meets our standards for resale. The remaining 40% — clothing, toys, and gear too worn, stained, or broken for the floor — heads to a local nonprofit partner. Even there, much of it is too worn to redistribute, and that material quietly ends up at textile recyclers or in landfill.
It's the part of the business nobody writes a marketing campaign about. We think it should be.
Annual intake
100,000+
children's items processed across our Boston-area stores every year.
Can't be resold
~40%
don't meet our bar for condition, brand, category, or size at the point of intake.
Still fall through
10,000s
of items reach our nonprofit partner but are too worn to redistribute — headed to recyclers or landfill.
The idea
Roundabouts is a new product line from Merry Go Rounds. Textiles that can't find a second owner are cleaned, sanitized, and shredded into a clean, soft fill — the inside of a new generation of home goods designed to last decades.
High-volume byproducts become high-longevity products. The merry-go-round keeps turning.
The collection
Each roundabout is filled with sanitized, shredded textiles sourced from our own intake, and finished by a named local maker. Not a line of disposable home goods — a line of future hand-me-downs.
01 · Pouf
Heavy enough to anchor a reading nook, soft enough for a kid to faceplant into. Canvas or denim shell, densely packed shredded fill, double-stitched seams.
Why it works · weight and density need mass — the exact trait textile waste has in abundance.
02 · Pregnancy pillow
A C-curve of cushioned comfort through every trimester, and a full-body pillow long after baby arrives. Removable cotton cover, washable, repairable.
Why it works · fine-shredded fill conforms without clumping, and the shape invites a decade of reuse.
03 · Stuffed animals
Small-batch characters designed with our local maker partners, filled with the textiles of childhoods already lived. A hand-me-down, built on purpose.
Why it works · high-margin, giftable, and the perfect entry price point into the Roundabouts story.
How it's made
01
Consignors drop off children's goods at our Easton and Wayland stores, as they do today.
02
Our team triages every item: resale floor, donation partner, or Roundabouts-bound fill stock.
03
Textiles are laundered at commercial standards and shredded into clean, soft, lofted fill.
04
The fill is portioned, weighed, and prepped into maker-ready bags for pickup.
05
Boston-area artists sew, stitch, and finish each piece — every item carries its maker's name.
Why it works
A great circular-economy product has to be great on three axes: it has to strengthen the business, reward the customer, and move the climate needle. Roundabouts do all three — and they reinforce each other.
For the business
For our customers
For the climate
Year-one projection
A conservative pilot running out of our existing two stores, onboarding one new maker partner each month.
15,000+
pounds of textile waste diverted from recyclers and landfill.
2,000+
finished roundabouts produced across the three SKUs.
10+
Boston-area makers paid for contracted craft work.
Based on our current disposal volumes at both stores, average fill weights per SKU (≈ 8 lb pouf, 4 lb pregnancy pillow, 0.4 lb stuffed animal), and a ramp-up assumption of one new maker partner onboarded per month. Figures are internal estimates for the proposal and will be refined during pilot.
Partner with us
Roundabouts run on hands, not machines. If you're a Boston-area maker and you'd like to co-produce a pouf, pregnancy pillow, or stuffed-animal pattern, we'd love to hear from you.
We provide the fill and the fabric shell. You bring the craft — and your name goes on every piece you make.
What we're looking for
Roundabouts are how we close the loop on the 40% we couldn't sell — and how we turn what used to leave the store as waste into something a family keeps for a generation.
Get in touch