Textile Recycling: A For-Profit Startup Success Among Controversy Comment Now For consumers, recycling bottles, cans, and paper is a simple toss into a marked bin. But when it comes to damaged and unwearable clothing, the trash is a tempting container for a quick deposit. That choice comes with a price — the EPA estimates that over 13 million tons of textiles enter landfills and comprise 5.7% of total solid waste streams. While destroyed clothes may seem like trash, these fabrics can be reprocessed into rags, insulation, and stuffing and the remaining natural materials left for composting. Enter the government, nonprofit, and for-profit enterprises tapping into consumers’ need for convenience. In New York City, where 200,000 tons of textiles are thrown out each year, the Bloomberg administration in 2011 launched re-fashioNYC, a city-sponsored program that offers free donation bins for residential complexes. Nonprofit GrowNYC hosts daily collections throughout the city. For-profit Wearable Collections partners with GrowNYC at the greenmarkets and also provides and monitors bins for buildings, an endeavor they’ve undertaken since 2004. But according to serial entrepreneur Polina Groman of Brooklyn, these pursuits haven’t been enough to accommodate the city and promote the cause, and so she created her own textile recycling company called SpinGreen in February 2013. SpinGreen monitors 550 collection bins placed within residential buildings, commercial complexes, schools, and faith-based organizations and have been collecting between 200,000 to 300,000 pounds per month. In a warehouse, where SpinGreen employs 14 workers in addition to their 10 administrative staff, textiles are sorted into grades: about 45% is usable with 10% wearable.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 01:22:34 +0000
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