Recently there was a report about a family in the United Kingdom who managed to go an entire year, filling only one rubbish bin. One of the ways in which this super eco-family was able to reduce their waste to nearly zero was to reduce the amount of textiles that they brought into their home and were later thrown away. This can be done in a variety of ways, largely by buying only second hand clothes or by repairing used clothes instead of throwing them away. One of the things holding back the growth of textile recycling in the United Kingdom is the comingling of different types of textiles which make them harder or in some cases impossible to be recycled.
Defra’s Sustainable Clothing Roadmap Project aims to decrease the amount of textiles that end up being thrown into landfills. Last year only about a quarter of textile were recycled and one of the biggest things holding it back is that people are unaware of how to recycle textiles and where to take them for recycling. As collections and recycling rates go up the problem of comingled textiles becomes even worse. The problem with comingled textiles is that they must be separated, which not only takes labor, but also time, which can lead to the materials getting damp or damaged which lessens the value.
Some of the plans Defra has suggested as a means of avoiding these problems include educating the public on what can be recycled and also encouraging re-use of items like clothing and footwear as opposed to recycling.
|
|
