ANGELA HAWKINS ('95) ADMITS SHE'S A "SHOPAHOLIC," especially
when it comes to clothes.
a lot,” confesses Hawkins. “It seems like whenever I’m anywhere
near a store that has nice clothes, I have to go in to take a look.
And very often I come out with something new.”
she has clothes overflowing three closets, numerous drawers and
several storage boxes.
she knows it’s time to get rid of things when she can’t get into
her closets anymore. Her first reaction is to give some of her excess
clothing to charities or relatives, but she has to admit that she
throws away a lot of old clothing and rags.
is not alone. Current research indicates that the average American
throws away 67.9 pounds of clothing and rags each year. With some
20 million people in the state of Texas, that’s 1.4 billion pounds
of clothing thrown away each year in Texas alone.
there’s good news for Hawkins and for all of us — about 95 percent
of our clothing throwaways are recyclable. And that potential drives
UNT researcher Jana Hawley in a unique project that is aimed at
making all Americans more aware of the reusability of textiles.
Hawley, an assistant professor of merchandising and hospitality
management who has worked and studied in the textile industry for
16 years, spent last summer collecting data from various textile
recycling companies in Texas and around the nation to study and
chart their recycling methods.
American consumers to realize the enormous volume — and value —
of the garments they throw away.
many consumers enthusiastically recycle their aluminum cans, glass
containers and plastic jugs, there’s no protocol for old clothes,”
recycling is one of the oldest forms of recycling, but it’s the
least known. Hawkins and others have the right idea in taking clothing
to charities, but many communities don’t know they can also order
clothing recycling bins from for-profit companies.
company that maintains the city of Denton’s textile recycling bins
takes in five to seven tons of clothing and rags each month,” says
Joe Ialenti, Denton’s recycling manager. “And it’s a great source
of income for the city. The company we work with pays us rent for
textile recycling removes 2.5 billion pounds of consumer clothing
waste headed for landfills. This is an average of 10 pounds per
American, but it barely puts a dent in the amount that goes to waste.
to Hawley, about 145 billion pounds of recyclable clothing are still
routed to landfills every year. She believes this national figure
can be drastically lowered if more people go through the nontraditional
methods of recycling clothes as well as donating to charities.
determined that the textile recycling industry is made up of used
clothing dealers and exporters, and fiber recyclers. Most are small,
family-owned businesses with fewer than 500 employees. They purchase
clothes as “mixed rags” surplus from charitable organizations or
work out agreements with cities to place collection bins at strategic
recycling about a million pounds of clothing each week,” says Thom
Haxton, the vintage clothing specialist for Mid-West Textile Co.
in El Paso — one of the largest textile recycling houses in the
United States. “But even at that rate we estimate that we handle
less than 1 percent of the nation’s surplus clothing because millions
of pounds of clothing are still going to the landfills.”
world of alternatives
of the garments reclaimed by textile recyclers are exported to Third
World nations to clothe the world’s poorest people.
research shows that in many of these nations, secondhand clothing
is all that is affordable to people who earn as little as $200 per
to Haxton, a pair of pants from the United States can be delivered
to Africa and blouses can go to Pakistan for less than the cost
of mailing a letter. These are markets that most charities don’t
approach, but they are sustained partly by the excess that comes
to recyclers from charitable organizations.
there’s also a specialized market for wearable vintage American
clothing in wealthy countries such as Japan and France. Although
only 1 percent of the clothes sorted by operations like El Paso’s
Midwest Textile Co. are vintage and collectible items, they comprise
about 15 percent of the revenues for most recycling houses.
aspect of textile recycling, old clothes are made into new items.
Although American consumers aren’t as likely to buy
made from “waste materials,” recyclers say the practice is common
in Europe. Outside the United States, wool and cashmere clothing is
broken down into raw fibers and yarns for the manufacture of new garments.
In the United States, it’s not uncommon for companies to take whole
garments and redesign them into trendier new clothes.
percent of used clothes gathered by textile recycling houses become
wiping and polishing cloths sold to the government or industries
for use in auto garages, furniture finishing and janitorial supply
operations. Washable cloth rags are easier on the environment than
disposable paper towels.
ruined by stains or other damage are recyclable, too. They can be
chopped into fine fiber called shoddy, a product used in mattresses,
home and auto insulation, and filtration systems. Recycled fabric
can also be shredded and refined for the aeronautics industry, used
as roughage for cattle and used to strengthen plastics. Cotton rags
can be chopped into shoddy for the paper industry.
still are not salvageable. About 2 to 3 percent of the materials
that go to recycling houses end up in landfills. These items commonly
include raincoats, plastic shower curtains, and pillows damaged
efforts like Hawley’s, which focus attention on the textile recycling
industry, may eventually help recyclers find uses for even the most
Brill, executive director of the Council for Textile Recycling,
says he hopes Hawley’s study will build greater consumer awareness
is the biggest barrier stopping communities from starting their
own textile recycling programs,” he says.
awareness already is helping Hawkins to change her behavior. “This
has just given me a new cause,” she says. “I had no idea that practically
everything was recyclable. I’m definitely going to start passing
more things along and stop throwing reusable things away.”