Is there a good way for LDS garments and other religious garb to be discarded?
Photo: (Kim Raff | The New York Times) Ali and Ben Larsen ,founders of
Celestial Recycling, a business that allows Latter-day Saints to discard
their religious garments, in Plain City on May 12, 2025.
From Salt Lake Tribune
By Alexander Nazaryan - The New York Times
- May 30, 2025, 6:00 AM
Updated: June 2, 2025, 9:22 AM
Ben and Ali Larsen were cleaning out the basement of their house in Ogden when an idea came to them.
There, they found several garbage bags full of old temple garments,
a kind of sacred undergarment that faithful members of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are required to wear under their
clothes. These garments — always white and generally snug, covering the
shoulders and torso as well as the lower half of the body down to the
knees — are worn at all times, with exceptions for sports, bathing and a
few other activities.
“If you can do the
activity while wearing the garment, it’s recommended that you do,” Ali.
Larsen said. “Because it is a symbol of your love of the Savior and your
faith in him.”
The garments can be thrown away
or reused, but only after the four holy markings that are stitched or
printed onto all such garments are cut out.
“A lot of people would cut it up and use it as, like, a dish rag or to dry their car,” Ali Larsen said.
But,
for the most part, “nobody likes having to dispose of them,” Ben Larsen
said. “It’s labor intensive, and we see them as extremely sacred.
Members really struggle with, ‘Am I treating this with the dignity and
respect that it deserves?’”
Many church members,
he said, simply put the issue out of sight and mind. “We’ve heard
stories about members who’ve saved their garments for years.”
