Don’t trash old clothes, recycle
Eileen Yager, Communications Officer, Extension & Ag Information
University of Missouri, yagere@umsystem.edu

Recycling can give old clothes, linens and other textiles a second life and reduce the amount of waste going into landfills.

“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, associate professor of textile and apparel management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “Ninety-nine percent of used textiles are recyclable.”

About 4.5 percent of waste sent to municipal landfills – 4 million tons according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – is textiles.

Hawley recommends that consumers recycle everything. “The best place to start (giving) is with your favorite charitable organization,” she said.

Items charities can’t use go to “rag sorters,” companies that specialize in recycling textiles, said Hawley, who recently completed a five-year study of markets for recycled textiles.

Through her research, Hawley found that textile recyclers sell about half of the clothing overseas in developing countries and Asia. Unusable garments, particularly cotton t-shirts, are turned into wiping and polishing clothes that are used by a variety of industries as well as sold to consumers, she said.

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, Hawley said.

Lee Fox, an extension environmental quality specialist, said the increasing consumer appeal for products made with recycled content is creating greater market potential.

Raw materials created from recycled content generally cost less, making their use attractive to manufacturers, said Fox, who works with recyclers and manufacturers to develop products made from recycled content.

“In many, many instances, you can easily substitute recycled materials,” he said.

Hawley said developing more markets for reclaimed fibers will make textile recycling more desirable, reducing the waste going to landfills. For municipalities, she said, textile recycling has an additional benefit. “In Denton, Texas, they learned that recycling textiles made almost enough money to cover the other recycling costs.”

Sources: Jana Hawley (573) 882-6316; Lee Fox (314) 615-7610