Why You Should NEVER Throw Old Clothes In The Trash

[Duppers]

Textile waste decomposes to produce potent greenhouse gases.

In 2013 alone, Americans discarded 15.1 million tons of clothing and other textiles, and 85 percent of that wound up in landfills.
That’s a bad thing, and not just because your old clothes could have been reused or recycled rather than being stuck in the ground. And not just because there are better uses for the land that landfills occupy ― or because transporting textile waste to landfills is so costly.
You see, all those baggy trousers and stained shirts in landfills don’t just lie there forever. They decompose. As they do, they release landfill gas, a toxic brew of air pollutants that includes the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-trashing-old-clothes-is-so-bad-for-the-environment_us_57f408f1e4b015995f2b93cb


Landfills

[DetlefK]

1. Throwing away clothes just because they are irredeemably dirty and ruined?

How about cutting them into pieces and using them as cleaning-cloths? They are surely still clean enough to clean a toilet-bowl or muddy boots.

[Glorfindel]

2. I never do. There's an organization called Homes of Grace here in south Mississippi

They have "dumpsters" in many locations that accept donations of just about anything. The donated items are sold to raise money for the organization's work with people who have addictions. Apparently they do a lot of good and have much success in rehabilitation. My point is, they make it easy do donate old clothes and other items. They will even send a truck to pick up larger things (furniture, TV's, and the like).

[Duppers]

3. Seldom ever here too.

I've two huge boxes of rags and actually use them for cleaning. They usually threadbare by the time I ditch them but I confess that our 100 lb Lab does a number on the rags too, using them as her pull toys.

I also patch clothing, especially jeans.

Found another article I'll post soon.

[Nitram]

4. If they are worn out, stained or too esthetically compromised they'll end ujp in a landfill anyway.

You can give them to whatever re-cycler you want, they all throw away the stuff that no one will wear.

[Duppers]

5. "Your Clothes Could Be as Recyclable as Glass or Paper. Really."

The U.S. generates an average of 25 billion lbs of textiles per year, or 82 lbs per person (just THINK of what the rest of the world generates!). 85% (21 billion pounds), or 70 lbs per person, ends up in our landfills — accounting for 5% of all landfill space.

Some companies, like H&M and Patagonia, have started buyback programs for old or worn out items, but those companies end up with more clothes than they know what to do with. Some are made into insulation or other materials, but the tide of clothes never ends. With their current supply chains, not all clothing collected can be repurposed.

Quality secondhand retailers like ThredUp have high standards for what they will resell and only accept around 40% of the clothes people submit for sale, and estimates put clothing resale at only 20% through secondhand stores or thrift store donations. ...

“If 1 in 100 American households shopped resale, they would collectively save over $1.4 billion every year. That’s enough for each of those households to pay for two years of college.”

Unfortunately, with around 80% of donated clothes being in poor condition or simply too low-quality to make the resale cut, there are a lot of $8 shirts and $20 jeans with nowhere to go. So every year the U.S. ships a billion pounds of clothing to developing regions in Africa, South America and China (making it the 8th largest export), and other countries follow suit. So after circling the globe, the $8 shirt ends up right where it began, now taking jobs away from local textile workers by flooding the economy with cheap, fast fashion that lures people away from buying locally made clothing. And when it is finally discarded, the $8 shirt most likely ends up in a landfill after all. So much for the shirt.

But, now, even if a favorite pair of 501 jeans are threadbare and can’t be resold or reused, they don’t have to join the flow of clothes populating landfills around the globe.

A new recycling technology has arrived on the scene. It’s a startup called Evrnu, and it’s “game-changer,” according to founder Stacy Flynn. If it catches on, it could help meet the increasing need for textiles, reduce waste and water consumption and lessen the number of $8 shirts that return home to further damage developing economies. The impact could be huge.

Stacy has worked in the garment industry for many years. In 2010, she was visiting China for business, and as she traveled the country, she saw firsthand the damage that the apparel industry was doing not only to the country’s environment, but around the world.

More...
http://storyofstuff.org/blog/soon-your-clothes-could-be-as-recyclable-as-glass-or-paper-really/

Here's Stacy Flynn's great TEDx Talk:

I also traveled China in 2010 for six weeks and know what she is saying about the amount of pollution there is true. Please give her talk a listen. Thanks!

[OkSustainAg]

6. Don't always go out and by unnecessary clothes constantly.

I farm and work outside everyday. I wear overalls made here in OK. Good work shirts. Durable footwear. Good hat. Most people people aren't ready to live the less consumer lifestyle.

[Duppers]

7. You're spot on.

Shopaholics (more or less extreme materialists with compulsive buying disorder) are nuts. Women seem to fit this label more than men, I'm sorry to say. I've had 2 women friends who weren't happy unless they were at some mall shopping 2 or 3 times a week.

I think these folks have an arrested development disorder and are stuck in their teen years.