New York City Hopes to Make Clothing Recycling Fashionable
Plan calls for 50 collection bins across the city, to make it easier for people to recycle clothes instead of throwing them away. Photo: Flickr/bondidwhat
If you had to identify a city in the U.S. that has its finger on the pulse of what’s fashionable, New York City wouldn’t be a bad choice.
Be it the city’s semi-annual Fashion Week or the numerous fashion publications based there, New Yorkers are very much up on what’s hip when it comes to clothing.
But this then begs the question – what should the city’s denizens do when their duds are so last year? Well, if the city’s government has anything to say about it, people will be recycling those old clothes.
As AP reported (via Yahoo), the city will launch a program in September that will place 50 collection bins across the city in areas with a lot of foot traffic, to entice people to recycle their clothing instead of tossing them.
As the article notes, Americans chuck nearly 10 pounds of “socks, jeans, shirts and sheets per year, per person,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, per a survey of 600 adults by Goodwill Industries, “more than half of the people who donate clothing say they wouldn’t go more than 10 minutes out of their way to make a donation,” so clearly convenience is important.
It’s uncertain as of now who’ll be responsible for the bins, with the city taking bids from nonprofit companies interested in taking on a 10- to 15-year contract, and Goodwill Industries is one such nonprofit.
As Goodwill spokesman Alfred Vanderbilt noted, “There has not been another program like this that we know of. We think they are being very creative and we hope this sets a new standard.” Don’t be surprised if that’s the case and you see more clothing collection bins popping up in other cities in the next few years.
Story by Marc Hertz, originally published July 6, 2010 on Tonic
Related articles
Clothesline Drying Challenge Launched, But Are You Allowed to Participate?
How Much ‘Goodwill’ Is Your Donation Worth?
Recycled Clothing: (re)Made to Last
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Kamala
posted on July 11th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Recycling is certainly better than just throwing old clothes out. My small town has had recycle bins for clothes and shoes as long as I can remember. But the whole concept of the fashion industry making everyones clothes obsolete and unwearable twice a year is quite disturbing. The earth is dying under our waste.