Recycle Your Clothing Instead of Adding to Landfills
Hennepin County is a trendsetter in a unique way. They want to help keep clothing and textiles out of landfills and will recycle them instead. The Council for Textile Recycling shares this info on their website about the amount of textile waste:
The U.S. EPA estimates that textile waste occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space.
While the EPA estimates that the textile recycling industry recycles approximately 3.8 billion pounds of post-consumer textile waste (PCTW) each year, this only accounts for approximately 15% of all PCTW, leaving 85% in our landfills.
The average US citizen throws away 70 pounds of clothing and other textiles annually.
Hennepin Environment is looking to help avoid clothing and textile landfill wastes. Here's what they shared yesterday:
This is a brilliant idea and would be great to have the option to do this in Rochester. However, if you're looking to recycle your clothing you can take them to a participating H&M store. For other items that need recycling, you can check The Olmsted County Recycling Center website to see what they accept.