Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Living Green - One Step at a Time: Worn Out Clothes or Ripped Clothing

An article, "How to Recycle Old Clothes", from Elle Magazine stated the following:

"According to a new report from the Council for Textile Recycling (CTR), the average American throws away 70 pounds. of clothing every year, which equals roughly 191 T-shirts…per person. Collectively, that’s approximately 3.8 billion pounds of waste."

"...the economic repercussions of this massive trashing are serious. Research from the Environmental Protection Agency indicates that the average charge for landfill dumping is $100 per ton, meaning that taxpayers could potentially save more than $1.1 billion every year by keeping textile waste out of landfills."

On their website, the Salvation Army has this following paragraph:

What happens to items I donate?

When we sell affordable donated items to people in the community this reduces waste. Most items not suitable for sale in the store are recycled or sold to those who deal in wholesale items, such as rag dealers, leather dealers and electronics scrap recovery businesses.



This was on the Goodwill Website

IT'S ALL GOOD

We take all kinds of donations at Goodwill. Most importantly, we're looking for clothes, books, shoes, and household items that are available for resell. But even if we can't resell your items, we find other good uses for them. Your raggedy old clothes actually become rags for local mechanic shops. So don't be afraid to bring us your goods as well as not-so-goods.

 

This is from another source on the internet, Hey, Mr. Green

"Americans dispose of more than 12 million tons of textiles annually, less than 25 percent of which is recycled or reused...

Donating items is indeed the best way to ensure reuse. If major thrift stores get clothing that's too ratty to resell, the cloth gets converted into things like industrial rags or sound-dampening material. When donating to a used-goods store, make sure it recycles unwanted materials. "

 

Next time you have extra clothing to get rid of, recycle it!




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