This company wants to repurpose broken headphones as what?

William Petz had a problem. His company, Quiet Events, rents out over-ear headphones for parties and events all over the world. But over time, that creates a lot of wear and tear on the headphones, and eventually they break down beyond repair. The company currently has more than 1,000 headsets in its New York City office alone that are unusable. Simply throwing them away would create a whole lot of e-waste, something the company is unwilling to do, so the headphones have just been sitting, gathering dust.

Petz, however, has a potential solution. The headphones can’t play music anymore, but they can still cover your ears, which gave him an idea. Perhaps they could be converted into earmuffs and donated to the homeless. All they really need is new coverings on the ear cushions that can provide added warmth while withstanding New York City-type of winter cold.

Petz has started a GoFundMe campaign to help get his idea off the ground. He told Digital Trends that he has reached out to some knitting groups online to see if they’d be willing to help. He will also be looking for help in figuring out the distribution once the earmuffs are made. “With the GofundMe page, the thought was to get enough money to pay someone who is out of work now to help put this all together,” he said.