Last month was one of the busiest I’ve had in a long while, with trips to Boston, Singapore, New York and Berlin over a four-week span. All for the good, but I’ve fallen behind on this blog, so I’m looking back today at a story that I wrote and posted last month on Guardian Sustainable Business.
As regular readers know, I’ve been paying attention to the circular economy, a term that describes an economy where nothing goes to waste, everything is made into something else at the end of its life, and the whole shebang is powered by clean, renewable energy. We’re a long way from there, obviously, but I see bits of the circular economy arriving in unexpected places.
One is the textile industry, which even as it has become dominated by cheap, throwaway “fast fashion” is simultaneously embracing recycling. That has created some unexpected tensions between old-fashioned charities like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, and newer, for-profit companies that see a business opportunity in collecting, reusing and recyling textiles.
Thus, the”clothing bin wars,” as I explained in this story in the Guardian:
Welcome to the clothing bin wars, a battle that comes complete with lawsuits alleging dirty dealing, lobbying of local and state politicians, rogue operators who put bins on other people’s property and even bizarre allegations that some big players in the clothing recycling industry are front groups for a mysterious Danish cult.
Who knew that recycling T-shirts and towels could get so complex?
This is basically a good-news story: Lots of people want your old clothes, sheets and towels because they have value. What you do with them is up to you–there is no perfect solution. (As a commenter in the story pointed out, even charities like Goodwill and the Salvation Army face questions about their conduct.) There are bins everywhere (but read the fine print before you dump your clothes in one) and, as I’ve written before, retailers including H&M take back clothes in their stores. You can even mail them at no cost to a company called Community Recycling that I wrote about in the story. So there’s no excuse for dumping textiles in a landfill.
One more thing struck me when reporting the story: People seem to want something in return when they giveaway their old clothes–a tax deduction from a charity, a discount on future purchases (which H&M offers), the feeling that they are doing the right thing. Even though we no longer want them, giving away clothes is an emotional decision in a way that recycling plastic bottles or newspapers is not.