New York City produces 386 million lbs of clothing waste annually. That's about 6% of total waste. Clothing waste is defined as clothing, shoes, linens, towels, hats and handbags. It is a big problem and many of us are probably at a loss about what to do with all these unwanted wearables. It is often difficult, especially for city-dwellers, to get the items to a donation point and it is difficult to know which organizations are recycling responsibly.
A New York City organization, Wearable Collections, has created a recycling process for urban areas that makes great sense. Wearable Collections provides a recycle bin for buildings in New York City. They promote the bin throughout the building, pick up full bins, sort items and process the goods appropriately, selling secondhand clothing to third-party vendors providing reduced-cost clothing for consumers in South American countries.
In addition, Wearable Collections will act as an agent for non-for profit organizations, helping them put on successful clothing drives as fundraisers. They provide bins, help with promotion, handle logistics and distribution and then pay the sponsoring charity for the items collected.
According to the Council of Textile Recycling, clothing recycling is one of the most efficient recycling businesses with about 50% of textile waste recovered as secondhand clothing. 20% is processed as material and becomes wiping and polishing cloths. The remaining 26% is converted into fiber for products such as mattresses and couches.
Discarded clothing is distributed to those in need world wide. Charities sponsoring clothing drives raise much needed funding. Waste is diverted from landfills. And Wearable Collections works to maintain an eco-efficient process - another great example of a win-win grassroots effort.
till next week --Restore, Refresh, Recycle and Renew
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I was very surprised how much apparel waste just the city of New York produces alone. This article seemed to focus on apparel as whole garments and not so much as fabric scraps. I know that when I worked in a factory for my internship we would just put our fabric scraps from our cut tables into large trash bags. We could easily fill 4 dumpsters a week from just fabric scraps. It really is incredible the quantities that are being thrown out of wearable clothing. I do agree that it is easier to find places to recycle clothing in more suburban areas. When I am at home in Bucks County, I know that Purple Heart will come to our house and pick things up, and then there are several bins and centers throughout my town. However, now that I live primarily in the City I have found that it is hard to find places for old clothing. Especially being a student, I move just about every year and have things that I want to get rid of constantly. If donating items were easier, I would recycle a lot of old clothing that I no longer use. I think that inner city recycling will improve over time similar to the trend of inner city trash recycling. Maybe they should follow that trend and every two weeks they come around and pick up items to be recycled similar to what they do with glass and plastic. I am proud that we are moving in this direction but I do feel like it took a while.
Every few years or so my family would go through our house and have a garage sale with all the unwanted items we had. With a family of five we would have boxes and boxes of clothing to give up each year, whatever we didn't sell we would end up giving to the Salvation Army. Now that I live at school and I only have so much here, I am constantly taking home clothing that I no longer wear or want and now my closet at home is full so I often think about what to do with so much unwanted stuff. I feel like giving it on to thrift stores is a good option, but at some point we need to find another way to get rid of our waste, not always pass it on to some other person who will deal with the same issue eventually. Wearable Collections is a great option for city dwellers and it seems to make it much easier to donate clothing if you could stop by an office building and drop things off little by little. It's also great that it gives it to another country which may need many of the items we no longer want. I wasn't really aware of the products we're able to make with recycling textiles. This process seems like a great idea since it would help eliminate and repurpose some of the already existing textiles. Thinking about how much our country produces and consumes annually, I really think we need to find a way to eliminate non-biodegradable waste like clothing. We have found ways to efficiently recycle plastic, paper, and glass I think over the next few years we need to make more of an attempt to do this in the apparel industry. With the rise and recognition of companies like Wearable Collections and textile recycling hopefully we will do so.
Yes! I have the hardest time trying to get to a Salvation Army in New York. I have lots of things that I want to get rid of. I admit that I have just thrown things out before but for the last few years, I don't want to just throw them away because I know how bad it is. There are drop off areas near my neighborhood but, for the amount of things I have to get rid of...it would be such a pain to drag them there. Is this just for companies, or can you request a bin for an apartment building? I would love to have a few to put in my building and the ones around me. I think it would really raise awareness about how much clothing waste there is, and how harmful it is.
In Catherine’s class last term, we discussed the dangers of fast fashion on our environment. Clothing from places such as H&M is not meant to last for more than a season. This requires people to get rid of their clothes, and buy more for the upcoming season. It’s exciting to know that people are acting on this issue. This organization sounds great. I know it isn’t always the easiest to recycle, so it’s nice that there are people out there who are actively working to make it easier. Personally I keep clothes for a long time, or pass them down to neighborhood girls. I still have shirts from the seventh grade…Although they fit a little different, I can still wear them and they are still “in style”.
I had assumed that New York City produced a lot of clothing waste but had not thought it would be anywhere close to 386 million pounds of waste per year… and to this number only counts for one city. This significant number is a real eye opener for those who discard their belongings without a care or thought. I know that it is hard to find a legitimate place to give away unwanted clothes at home in a small town, so I can only imagine the difficulties of doing so in a large city. It is great to read about organizations such as Wearable Collections because not only do they eliminate waste but they do so in a convenient way while supporting good causes. Personally, I always find a way to recycle my clothing. I hate to waste things, especially my clothes so I tend to either hand them down to my friends who want them or drop them off at the Salvation Army where I know others are in need. Actually I sometimes even shop at secondhand clothing stores just to purchase unique pieces that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. These garments have much better use in consignment shops than sitting in a dumpster somewhere waiting to rot into the environment.
When I was little my family was a hand-me-down enthusiast. My grandmother and aunt both babysit therefore whenever I had clothes that did not fit we would take them to their house. The parents would go through our stash with their children and whatever was left we would take to Salvation Army. That seems to be a trend in those that have a relationship with my grandmother. When I visit her today I still spot children that I don’t even know wearing my old clothes. Now that I am not wearing children’s clothes those that I do not wear any longer go straight to Salvation Army or I take them apart for material. William Good is a company I came across a while ago that takes Goodwill donations that cannot be sold and makes new unique garments out of them. The company is based in San Francisco but is currently working on their website to develop ecommerce opportunities. I know that some retailers are also developing take-back options for their customers. For example, Nike will take back your old running shoes, whatever the brand, and put them to use in playground surfaces, fields, and tracks. I have also read about denim companies taking back old jeans to design new denim products. Hopefully future designers will considered the disposability of a garment in their designs as well as its wear ability. This will limit the abundance of non-recyclable fibers used in production and hopefully reduce our consumer waste.
The numbers are alarming. It is great that companies like Wearable Collections are coming up and trying to make some positive changes. I did like hearing about the fact that the textile industry is the most efficient, however, more needs to be done. What Emily said is right, H&M clothing is only made to be worn a few times, so what do you do with those garments that don't last more then a few months? I luckily have a lot of younger cousins that love to go through my old clothes, so I bring my unwanted clothing to them. However, like Whitney brought up, what happens when they are done with it? Eventually they will become unwanted and we will need a place for them.
Honestly, I am kind of a pack rat. Anything that I take home from school usually goes back to my house at home. I have four sisters, so a lot of things i take home my sisters will pick up and wear and visa versa. Now that this has been happening for years upon years, our attic is mayhem and we have so much stuff we could give away. I'm sad to say we haven't done it yet, but I hope to in the future. This article helps me to see the importance of recycling clothing. Also, at my co-op we would go through old fabrics and bag them up to be thrown out. Many of them were offered to employees, but most of it was not taken. I am not only speaking of scraps, but large sums of fabric that could be used to make numerous garments. This company best explained it like this: We are stationed in New York where space is limited, we need a way to get rid of everything that we do not use. Which is completely understandable. Also, there is a huge issue with counterfeiting. The company I worked for did many original prints which were noted to their name. We had to bag the scraps up in about 10 different bags so they couldn't be utilized by just anyone. This is somewhat sad, but it's hard to put the blame on anyone in particular, because many company's do it. However I think that we should utilize these scraps in the best way possible. The Wearable Collection organization seems very helpful, and I hope to tell the next company I work for about it. And I hope to eventually be donating all my stuff as well. giant.
386,000,000 pounds of waste is an astronomical amount, to hear that this waste is coming from one city in the USA alone is frightening. When I was growing up I can not remember throwing out a single piece of clothing, if a clothing article has had its better days my mom would turn it into a cleaning rag, if it was still in wearable shape it would be donated. Many different organizations would call on a monthly basis to make arrangements to collect used clothing. Or there is also a collection dumpster at local supermarkets and shopping centers, although I grew up in a suburban area I am surprised that there is not a similar scenario in New York or Philadelphia.
The organization Wearable Collections is a brilliant idea and I am sure will be a great success. I am sure people hate that their only option is to throwout their old clothes when we all know that there are people in need. There is no reason why each apartment and office building in the city does not provide a clothing collection bin. If these new collections are accessible to the public there is no way this organization could fail.
-Kristan
If only Philadelphia had a solution to recycling clothing like New York City does with Wearable Collections. From personal experience, I find myself very frustrated when it comes to recycling my clothing in both the process and people. Last year when my sorority had a clothing drive, I was the only person that donated clothes. The girl organizing the event ended up mixing up dates and missed the pick up date originally scheduled. She promised she would take the clothes herself to the Salvation Army yet the bag sat outside her room for almost a year until she moved out and in the end the bag of good clothes was just thrown out. This past summer I was in a beach house with about 15 people. The weekend we moved out it was raining, so nobody made the trip to pick up their stuff. I threw every thing into my car thinking it was the right thing to do instead of throwing it out. I was left with about 3 bags of towels, sheets, blankets, clothes, and bathing suits. After 3 months of nobody claiming things and about 20 emails including an inventory list of things, I tried to take it to the Salvation Army but they only accepted half of it. It frustrates me that because of people’s laziness, perfectly good things are adding to that waste. While there is Buffalo Exchange in the city, they are very selective in what they take.
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