Did you know approximately 85 % of the clothing Americans consume, which is nearly 3.8 billion pounds annually, is sent to landfills as solid waste, amounting to nearly 80 pounds per American per year?
That is a lot of textiles just sitting in a landfill. It is always a plus to donate the clothes you no longer wear but what about the old towels, bedsheets, old shoes, or shirts that are torn and aren’t warranted to be donated?
I had saved a lot of those types of items that weren’t good enough to be donated but I just couldn’t bring myself to throw away because nothing ever really goes away. Our garbage just gets moved into a landfill where most things do not biodegrade.
So, I began researching what to do with old textiles that can’t be donated. Locally, I found a textile recycling center that takes unusable or unsaleable textiles including books. Some of the items they receive may go to lower income people around the world or the textiles that are not suitable for wear or use are recycled into wiping rags or are processed back to fibers that can be remanufactured into paper, yarn, insulation, carpet padding, and sound proofing.
Recycling, reusing, repurposing overall helps reduce our carbon footprint, preserve clean air, reduce energy consumption, conserve water and woodlands.
If you have things that are not worthy of being donated, look up textile recycling near you and you will be able to find centers that will take these items and repurpose them.
Photo courtesy of istock
Reference:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7#ref-CR2
