What Happens to Your Discarded Clothing?

The rise of fast fashion has changed the buying habits of American consumers. On average, according to the Public Interest Health Group (PIRG), Americans buy 53 new items of clothing each year. This is four times as much as the average in 2000. To make room for it, unwanted or used items usually end up in the trash.

Fast fashion companies churn out so much clothing that they may not even sell it all—leading manufacturers have even burned their own unsold products. For example, a major retailer was found to have burned 60 tons of new, unsold clothes over a five year period. It’s time for a change.

As the first and only clothing recycling franchise, Clothes Bin® strives to offer convenient ways for communities to recycle clothes and shoes. So, let’s take a closer look at precisely what happens to all that discarded clothing and then consider how you might promote smart environmental practices for the community.

What Happens to Clothing That Is Tossed in the Trash?

When cleaning out your closet, you probably toss clothes into one of three piles: keep, recycle, or discard. Let’s consider what happens to the clothing items that you throw into the trash.

Every year, about millions of tons of used or unsold clothing, including items from the fashion industry, is incinerated. It releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Furthermore, when synthetic clothing is burned, it can release plastic microfibers into the atmosphere.

What about the items that aren’t incinerated? Millions of tons of unwanted clothing are sent to landfills and open-air dumps each year. It can take well over 200 years for these items to decompose in landfills. All the while, the decomposing items emit additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, as well as chemicals into the soil and groundwater.

Clothes Bin® is a national franchise system, and we take clothing recycling seriously. We are poised to be the next Green Movement among consumers, offering an easy and accessible solution to help reduce landfill waste in the United States and throughout the world.

Embrace Eco-Friendly Practices and Promote Sustainability

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for promoting eco-friendly practices in your community, Clothes Bin® offers clothes recycling Bin franchise opportunities that embrace a proven business model and operate on a semi-absentee basis. Think of it as a side hustle, to start, that you may decide to scale and grow.

As a Clothes Bin® franchise owner, you’ll be doing your part to reduce the amount of unwanted clothing sent to landfills each year. Contact us today to request more clothes recycling franchise information and join us in our approach to “Fillanthropy.” Win-Win with the Bin.