This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Trophies are hard for people to throw away.

There's actually a service in Madison, Wisconsin that will recycle your old trophies

and turn them into new ones.

They replace the name plates, they polish them up, and then donate them to non-profits like the Boys

and Girls Club or the Special Olympics.

Some of the trophies they get come from people who have passed away.

They're surviving relatives in them.

And sometimes they're from people who are just tired of their trophies taking up space in their homes.

In both cases, people will actually pay the shipping to Madison to avoid putting their

trophies in the trash.

Donna Gray, who runs this service with their daughter Janet, says that sometimes people

request to be told where their old trophies end up,

almost like they're donating an organ.

Most of the time, the materials that make them are cheap,

but that's not how you measure the value of a trophy.

There's a little trophy shop down the street from our office in Oakland.

It's small but bustling, and its windows are stuffed to the brim with the

wards made of all kinds of materials and in any shape you can imagine.

Chalices, orbs, golfers, gavels, apples, and plaques.

Plenty of plaques.

So of course, producer Avery Truffelman read them.

...