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From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

New Wear for Worn-Out Clothes

Torn and tattered doesn’t mean trash-bound for textiles

How or where can I recycle clothes that are too old or worn out for Goodwill?

—Tim Cheplick, Perrineville, N.J.

Just because that old shirt you used to love is too threadbare to wear anymore doesn’t mean it has to end up in a landfill.

“Consumers don’t understand that there’s a place for their old clothing even if something is missing a button or torn,” says Jana Hawley, a professor of textile and apparel management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “Ninety-nine percent of used textiles are recyclable.”

Non-profits like Goodwill and the Salvation Army play a crucial role in keeping old clothes out of the waste stream. When they get donations of clothes that are too threadbare to re-sell in one of their shops, they send them to rag sorters that specialize in recycling pieces of fabric large and small. These textile recyclers sell about half the clothing they get back overseas in developing countries, while unusable garments, especially cotton T-shirts, are turned into wiping and polishing clothes used by a variety of industries and sold to consumers, Hawley says. Other textiles are shredded into fibers used to make new products, such as sound-deadening materials for the automotive industry, archival-quality paper, blankets and even plastic fencing.

Outdoor clothing and gear maker Patagonia launched its innovative Common Threads Garment Recycling program in 2005. The program was originally begun so customers could return their worn out Capilene long undies for recycling. It has since expanded to taking back Patagonia fleece and cotton T-shirts, as well as Polartec fleece from other manufacturers. Consumers wanting to unload items that meet the program’s criteria can do so at any Patagonia retail store or by mailing them to the company’s Reno, Nevada, service center.

Of course, do-it-yourselfers handy with needle-and-thread or sewing machines can turn their old clothes into new creations such as quilts, handbags and smaller items. The website Expert Village, which claims to have the largest online collection of how-to videos, offers a free series called How to Recycle Old Clothes into New Fashions. Short step-by-step videos in the series cover such topics as transforming old garments into works of art; sewing patches, buttons and beads onto old clothes; deconstructing a wedding dress; ironing graphics onto old garments; and much more. Another good use for threadbare clothes — as well as sheets and towels — is pet bedding, whether in your own home or donated to a local animal shelter.

Textiles make up about four percent of the weight and eight percent of the volume of all municipal solid waste in the U.S., according to the non-profit Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The commercial recycling company U’SAgain — which runs private for-profit recycling services in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Louis and elsewhere — finds that some 85 percent of the 70 pounds of textiles the average American purchases each year ends up landfilled. That means the typical U.S. city with 50,000 residents has to pay (with local tax dollars) for the handling and disposal of some 3,000 tons of textiles every year. The shame of such waste is that textiles are so easy to recycle or otherwise find new uses for.

For more information:

• Goodwill: www.goodwill.org

• Salvation Army: www.salvationarmy.org

• Patagonia: www.patagonia.com

• Expert Village: www.expertvillage.com

• U’SAgain, www.usagain.com

Got an environmental question? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek: or e-mail [email protected]. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.