San Francisco Trashes 4,500+ Pounds of Clothes Every Hour

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Video via YouTube via SF Environment

4,537 pounds of textiles every hour means San Francisco sends more than 39 million pounds of textiles (clothing, shoes and the like) per year. The Zero Waste Initiative wants to get that down to, you guessed it, zero pounds by 2020, and that's going to require drastic change. As part of the effort to get there, the Department of the Environment has partnered with textile collector and processor I:Collect to gather and reuse old clothes and shoes.

"(For) every single T-shirt, every single shoe, we will find the next best use," I:Collect CEO Stephan Wiegand told the SF Examiner, whether that's a donation to Goodwill or reuse in recycled fabric. Local retailers including Levi's and H&M will serve as drop-off points in addition to stand-alone bins stationed around SF. Use this map to find one of the 100 locations to easily drop off unwanted clothes, shoes, and linens.
· Levi's Secret Lab Is Unveiled With a Sustainable Men's Line [Racked SF]
· Clothing, textiles placed in SF retailer bins to be reused for new products [SF Examiner]
· The Department of Environment for San Francisco [Official Site]