'Tis the Season to Give Away

Expertise

Dec 3

Written By Brenan Dwyer

Old clothing makes up over 17 million tons of landfill waste each year and smothers the landscape in textile dumps like in Chile's Atacama desert. The New York Times reports that as much as 62% of discarded clothing winds up in landfills.

Donate to Charities

Resell to Thrift Stores

Clothing Drop-Boxes

Retail Recyclers

Scrap or Upcycling Shops

Buy-Nothing Groups

Resale is a good option for trendy clothing in good condition. It doesn't disrupt our need for a rotating closet, but it does prevent virgin materials from being used to satisfy our consumer cravings.

Both for-profit and nonprofit companies promise that your clothing donated via a drop box makes money for local charities by bundling and selling recyclables to plants, with profits from that sale supporting the charity. Terracycle sells boxes.

these retailers are taking into account the end-of-life options for their own products, a level of rare corporate responsibility. Secondly, these programs are more easily auditable than recycling programs overseas.

If Facebook still doesn't creep you out, I highly recommend joining your local buy nothing group. Until I 86-ed my FB, I scooped up and traded some awesome stuff including puzzles, cat care supplies, and clothing via these exchanges.

If you've taken the time to read this blog (thank you, you're awesome) you should know by now there are so many better ways you can handle your clothing waste than throwing it in the dumpster.

I made choices that I can stand behind, and while none of the options I encountered were without consequence, at least I finished my closet-cleaning project with an understanding of my impact.

Sources

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/style/clothing-recycling.html?

Resources

Nike Sneaker Donation Program

Brenan Dwyer

2022 Year in Review

Waste of a Trip