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Dear
EarthTalk: How or where can I recycle clothes that
are too old or worn out for Goodwill?
-- Tim Cheplick,
Perrineville, NJ
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Pre-owned
clothes for sale at a Goodwill. What the organization
doesn't sell retail it sends to "rag sorters."
These textile recyclers then send the wearable clothing
to developing countries and turn the unusable garments
into industrial wiping and polishing cloths.
© Arthaey," courtesy Flickr
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Just
because that old shirt you used to love is too threadbare
to wear anymore doesn’t mean it has to end up in a
landfill. “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, a professor of
textile and apparel management at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
“Ninety-nine percent of used textiles are recyclable.”
Non-profits like
Goodwill and the Salvation Army play a crucial role in keeping
old clothes out of the waste stream. When they get donations
of clothes that are too threadbare to re-sell in one of
their shops, they send them to “rag sorters” that
specialize in recycling pieces of fabric large and small.
Says Hawley, these textile recyclers sell about half the
clothing they get back overseas in developing countries,
while unusable garments, especially cotton t-shirts, are
turned into wiping and polishing clothes used by a variety
of industries and sold to consumers. She adds that 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.
Outdoor clothing
and gear maker Patagonia, which plies a strong environmental
mandate in key aspects of its operations (from sourcing
of raw materials to managing waste to making grants to environmental
nonprofits), in 2005 launched its innovative Common Threads
Garment Recycling program. The program was originally begun
so customers could return their worn out Capilene long undies
for recycling, but has expanded to taking back Patagonia
fleece and cotton t-shirts as well as Polartec fleece from
other manufacturers. Consumers wanting to unload items that
meet the program’s criteria can do so at any Patagonia
retail store or by mailing them into the company’s
Reno, Nevada service center.
Of course, do-it-yourselfers
handy with needle-and-thread or sewing machines can turn their
old clothes into new creations such as quilts, handbags and
smaller items. The website Expert Village, which claims to
have the largest online collection of “how-to” videos,
offers a free series called “How to Recycle Old Clothes
into New Fashions.” Short step-by-step videos in the
series cover such topics as transforming old garments into
works of art; sewing patches, buttons and beads onto old clothes;
deconstructing a wedding dress; ironing graphics onto old
garments, and much more. Another good use for threadbare clothes
(as well as sheets and towels) is pet bedding, whether in
your own home or donated to a local animal shelter.
According to
the non-profit Institute for Local Self-Reliance, textiles
make up about four percent of the weight and eight percent
of the volume of all municipal solid waste in the U.S. The
commercial recycling company U’SAgain—which runs
private for-profit recycling services in Atlanta, Chicago,
Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Louis and elsewhere—finds
that some 85 percent of the 70 pounds of textiles the average
American purchases each year ends up landfilled. That means
the typical U.S. city with 50,000 residents has to pay (with
local tax dollars) for the handling and disposal of some
3,000 tons of textiles every year. The shame of such waste
is that textiles are so easy to recycle or otherwise find
new uses for.
CONTACTS:
Goodwill;
Salvation
Army; Patagonia;
Expert
Village; U’SAgain.
Dear EarthTalk:
What are the conservation implications of all the wild
colonies of escaped pet parrots that have turned up in and
around some major U.S. cities?
-- Mike Gifford,
Kirkland, WA
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A
pair of Quaker Parrots (also known as "Monk Parakeets")
on a branch in Brazil, one of their shrinking native
habitats. Preserving the health of the many wild flocks
in the U.S. and other developed countries around the
world may well be key to preventing these birds from
going extinct altogether.
© Getty Images
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At least three
dozen different parrot species are now considered threatened
or endangered in their quickly shrinking native tropical
and sub-tropical habitats (mostly in South America). As
such, the health of wild flocks in the U.S. and other developed
countries around the world may well be key to preserving
these birds that could otherwise go extinct.
Today wild parrot
flocks thrive in urban and suburban areas of New York, New
Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Texas, Washington State and
elsewhere. San Francisco and Brooklyn each host particularly
large flocks, especially considering their relative lack
of green space. Wild parrot flocks are also reportedly thriving
in cities across much of Western Europe. Most of these parrots,
of course, are not former pets themselves, but the descendents
of birds that long ago may have escaped during transport
from their jungle homes to pet stores generations ago.
Parrots are among
the most intelligent and adaptable birds, so it is no surprise
that they’ve done so well in North America and other
regions, despite colder temperatures. Indeed it is not uncommon
in the Northeast to see large groups of parrots perched
in winter on deck railings piled with several inches of
snow. The regions they inhabit, despite the cold weather,
provide enough food and shelter to meet their relatively
modest needs. And once the parrots were able to establish
themselves in their new habitats, they got on with the business
of breeding. Therefore, their offspring, though born in
the city, are wild birds nonetheless, carrying on lifestyles
not unlike those of their ancestors back in the jungles
of South America (though their predators are different).
Conservationists
are optimistic that the parrots’ successful adaptation
to more northerly urban environments bodes well for their
future, despite the loss of much of their ancestral rainforest
habitat. According to Roelant Jonker of the non-profit City
Parrots, encouraging the formation of wild flocks of urban
parrots promises to be a much more effective conservation
tactic than trying to raise more birds in captivity where
they would not so readily pass on their genes or learn the
survival, adaptation and social skills necessary to survive.
To Jonker, the proof is in the pudding: Some 2,500 wild
red-crowned Amazon parrots (a quarter of the world’s
total) are thriving in and around California’s biggest
urban areas at the same time their population numbers are
plummeting back in their native rainforest habitat.
The 2006 Judy
Irving documentary, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,
shadows wild parrot crusader Mark Bittner and his efforts
to care for a wild flock of Red-headed Conyers living in
San Francisco. Bittner feeds birdseed to the Conyers and
gets to know each individual bird and its idiosyncrasies.
The film’s shots of parrots interacting with one another
and with Bittner really drive the point home how much we
have in common with the wild kingdom of animals all around
us, whether we live in the city or the country.
CONTACTS:
City
Parrots; The
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
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