Starting Saturday, August 1, 2009, the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC) is expanding its textile and clothing recycling project to four additional Greenmarket locations, including McCarren Park from 8am – 2pm. It will be an ongoing weekly program.
CENYC is partnering with Wearable Collections, a NYC-based textile recycling company. (The company donates part of the proceeds from the reclaimed materials to support costs associated with operating the program.)
“About 400,000 pounds of used clothing, shoes, linens, towels, and accessories have been dropped off by New Yorkers since the summer of 2007 at four textile recycling collection sites in Manhattan and Brooklyn,” explained David Hurd, director of Office of Recycling Outreach & Education. “The textiles are transported to a sorting facility where everything gets categorized based on reusability and type of fabric, then sent to different markets where there is a demand for that type of material.”
Hurd also explained that “unwanted textiles represent almost 6% of the city’s residential waste stream, so providing easy access to alternative drop-off sites is key to helping eliminate unnecessary waste.”
Leave a Reply