Textiles
"Buy less, choose well." – Vivienne Westwood, Fashion Designer
In 2015, according to Levi Strauss & Co., “if everyone in the U.S. recycled their clothing and textiles instead of discarding for one year, it would save 30.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
That’s equivalent to a traffic-free Golden Gate Bridge for more than 60 years.
Recycling 1 pair of jeans has the same impact as recycling 69 plastic bottles.”
While clothing hasn’t typically been viewed as a recyclable item, roughly two million tons of textile products are recycled each year. This is the beginning of something big!
One great option for recycling clothing and textiles collected with your regular curbside recycling is Simple Recycling. There are a growing number of participating cities in the Northeast and around the country. Check to see if your area is taking part.
It’s free & easy!
Besides Simple Recycling, there is a growing list of textile recycling participants:
Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Savers, Blue Jeans Go Green, American Textile Recycling Service, USAgain to name a few.
Clothing retailers are also getting in on the action:
H&M, Levi Strauss & Co., Madewell, Zara, and The North Face.
Textile recyclers typically sort your donated bag of clothing and textiles into categories:
The best clothing items are resold.
Wearable, with missing buttons or minor flaws, are sold in bulk for overseas markets - where the culture tends to be “repair” rather than “disposal.”
Unwearable items, such as rags, towels, used underwear (Yes, used! More on that soon.), etc. are either:
cut up and resold into industrial markets as wiping rags, or
sold off to be shredded and used to make insulation, stuffing for cushions or stuffed animals, carpet padding, soundproofing in the automotive industry, and so on.
Some other ways to keep textiles out of landfills are:
Check with your local animal shelter to see if they take clean blankets, towels and linens.
Buy secondhand. There are many online and storefront options. You will find some items are new with sales tags still attached.
Shop in your own closet. Choose not to buy new. The less we buy, the less we need to recycle.
When you are ready to get rid of clothing, shoes, towels, rags, bed sheets, carpets, rugs, curtains, and other textiles
- no matter what their condition is -
keep them out of our landfills.
Extend their life.
Donate.
Recycle.