Clothing Recycling

According to the EPA’s Website, clothing and other textiles take up nearly 5% of the municipal waste stream. Wearable Collections, a socially responsible clothing recycling company, is determined to do something about this. By teaming up with university students across the northeast, we aim to reduce the amount of clothing heading towards landfills.

The Challenge

We are looking for motivated students to organize a clothing collection on campus, could be an environmental club, sports club, fraternity/sorority etc. Wearable Collections will provide the students with everything they need to ensure a successful clothing drive. All they need is enthusiasm to make a difference on campus.

The Reward

When less materials end up in landfills we all are winners. However, on top of feeling good for taking a proactive stance on the environment, Wearable Collections will dedicate 5 cents of every pound collected to the organizers of the collection. It is possible to raise as much as $1500 for your organization.

Rules

We at Wearable Collections aren’t exactly sticklers for rules, but we do request that you contact us by April 15, 2009. The duration of the collections is up to the respective organizations, but we feel to maximize promotion and collections, the drive should be at least 2 weeks. Remember, Earth Day is April 22, and a great time to motivate the student body. Dormitory clean up at the end of the year is also a fantastic time.

Contact

For more information on how you can be a campus collection coordinator please email us at cccc@wearablecollections.com or call 646.515.4387

About Wearable Collections

Wearable Collections LLC (www.wearablecollections.com) is a NYC based clothing recycling company. Its goal is to reduce some of the 386 million pounds of textile waste heading towards the city’s landfills annually, while raising funds for charitable organizations. By placing bins in residential buildings throughout the city, Wearable Collections makes it as easy to recycle clothes as it is to recycle plastic, paper and glass.

It was a small mention in yesterday’s New York Times    environment section, but we’ll take it. In an article discussing obstacles that co-op boards have installing green initiatives, Wearable Collections service was stated as “doable”. We couldn’t agree more.

Full Article

Anyone with a real interest in the history of textiles must check out this book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy Being so involved in the industry, we found this book very informative. It has now become required reading for all Wearable employees in order to handle the onslaught of questions we receive on a daily basis. Pietra Rivoli describes a world of quotas and protections, from the growing of cotton to the production of the completed textiles.  The chapter that i found most relevant to Wearable’s business is titled My T-Shirt Finally Encounters A Free Market- The Global trade in cast-off Tshirts.  Here she sheds light on the machinations of the clothing recycling industry. Describing a world of small businesses making strong relationships with other small businesses in order to find new homes for the multitude of American discarded textiles.  I never thought so deeply about the importance of textiles in the growth of almost every countries’ economy, but now I will never look at a T Shirt in the same way.

We are happy to welcome residents in the follwong locations to our clothing recycling program: 160 w 96th st, 536 w 111st, 265 Riverside Dr. We have also ventured into the Brooklyn Navy Yards to begin collecting clothes at the uber-responsible Ice Stone. Finally, as shown in the picture, we now have a semi-outdoor bin located on Great Jones st, between Lafayette and Broadway. This bin is available for everyone. Thanks to the good peeps at eco-compassion www.greenfinds.com  If you havent been to this website yet, you must check it out. Ladies, the deals can’t be beat.