Old clothes piling up? Wardrobe feeling a little out of date? It happens to everyone. But what to do with those unwanted shirts, pants, dresses and shoes?
California has a new answer.
On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that requires companies that make clothing, footwear and textiles, including drapes, towels and bedding, to set up the nation’s first mandatory take-back program for unwanted clothes.
The goal of the bill, SB 707, is to reduce the millions of tons of unwanted clothes that end up in landfills across the state. Some are donated to thrift stores, but when thrift stores can’t resell them, they often re-sell the aging garments to other companies that ship them in bulk to developing nations, such as Ghana and Chile, where they are piled in mountains as high as 50 feet in deserts and along rivers, creating massive garbage problems.
“Too many of these garments are destined for a landfill or an incinerator,” said Fiona Hines, a legislative advocate with the California Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit consumer advocacy group in Sacramento.
“We are hopeful this nation-leading law will reduce clothing waste,” she added Sunday, “and lead us toward a future where we produce quality clothes that we can repair and reuse longer, and recycle when they reach their end of life.”
Under the new law, companies that make clothing and other textiles sold in California will be required to create a new non-profit organization by 2026 that would set up hundreds of collection sites at thrift stores, begin mail-back programs and take other steps in all of California’s 58 counties to take back and recycle their products by 2030.
“By 2030, convenient drop-off locations for used textiles across the state will provide everyone with a free and simple way to be part of the solution” said State Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, who wrote the bill, on Sunday. “California is again at the forefront of innovation.”
The problem is big. In 2021, roughly 1.2 million tons of clothes and textiles were disposed of in California, according to the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, known as CalRecycle. While 95% are reusable or recyclable, only 15% currently are.
The accumulation of clothing waste is being made worse by “fast fashion,” a trend in which clothing companies make low-cost clothes intended to be worn only a few times as fashions shift.
The bill is the latest in a trend of California lawmakers requiring companies that make difficult-to-dispose-of products to take responsibility for recycling and reusing them, rather than leaving the cost and challenge up to local city and county governments.
One example: Under state law since 2018, consumers are charged $10.50 when they buy a new mattress in California. That money helps fund an industry-led program, the Mattress Recycling Council, that has opened 240 collection sites and now recycles 85% of old mattresses in the state.
Similar “extended producer responsibility” programs with paint and carpet have been put in …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
