You and your family are probably familiar to recycling materials like paper, plastics, glass and metal. Today at the Lawrence Recycling Program we want to introduce you to the world of textile recycling.
Why should you care about recycling your clothes?
Consumers are buying more clothes and wearing them less. The average consumer now buys 60% more clothing items a year and keeps them for about half as long as 15 years ago.
Clothing producers are increasing production to meet this demand. Worldwide, clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014. By 2014, the number of garments exceeded 100 billion.
Many of those garments are low quality, and don’t last as long as they used to. In fact, the life of consumer products, like clothing, shortened by 50% from 1992 to 2002.
This means that many of those items end up in landfills. Americans throw away over 32 billion pounds of textiles a year!
Making clothing uses resources: It can take 1,500 gallons of water to manufacture just one T-shirt and pair of jeans. That’s how much water you will drink in 13 years.
Extending clothing life by just three months can reduce carbon, water and waste footprints by up to 10 percent.
By recycling textiles, you are not only making a positive impact on the environment, you are also helping the local economy.
How can you recycle textiles?
A textile is any item made from cloth or an artificial fabric like vinyl. Textiles are used for clothing, linens, bedding, upholstery, curtains, carpets, and other items. Any textile item, even if it’s worn, torn, or stained, can be recycled. You can even recycle a single shoe! Items simply need to be clean and dry.
Here are the options for you to recycle these materials in the Lawrence area:
- St. Vincent de Paul Society
- 42 Franklin St # 44, Lawrence 01840
- School Box drop off locations:
- Frost Middle School (Parking lot)
- 33 Hamlet St, Lawrence 01841
- Wetherbee School
- 75 Newton St, Lawrence 01843
Join us in our efforts to improve the recycling program, if you want to get involved, have any questions or want more information please contact Lorena Salazar, Recycling Coordinator at the city of Lawrence.
