Are you cleaning out your closet of clothes and finding many ones you don't want anymore？ Do you have any clothes that are stained, dirty, or ripped or you're not using anymore？ Then think twice: Don't throw them away, instead, recycle them! Because if the clothing ends up in the trash can, it goes to landfills or oceans, and that is not good for humans or the environment we live in. You probably have heard of the Garment Collecting Programme from clothing company H&M, they started collecting people's old and unused clothing in the year 2013.
Most of the recycled textiles are made into mattress stuffing, pillow stuffing, car seat stuffing or new clothes. There are a few steps to recycle clothing:
- The clothing needs to be sorted out either by color, material, or other groups.
- An ozone chamber cleans the piece of clothing.
- Technicians remove any accessories on the piece of clothing such as buttons, zippers, or any added-on objects, those added-on objects can still get reused.
- If the garment is big in size, technicians would cut the garment into a few pieces. Then the garment goes into a shredder, shredding the garment into very tiny pieces.
- After shredding, the shredded garment is mixed with some virgin fibers to make the piece stronger.
- Technicians use another machine to mix the virgin fibers with the garment thoroughly. The mixed virgin fibers and garment is put into another machine to turn it into what’s known as a fiber web, a thin layer of the mixture.
- Fiber web turns into a snake-like piece. Then it is spun into ply yarn, the start of a new piece of clothing.
- At last, a machine knits a sweater designed by a computer.
There is a woman in Australia, and her name is Veena Sahajwalla. She is known as the waste queen. “Growing up in Mumbai, in India, where I was born there was no such thing as a waste. Everything had value and everything had potential.” She said.
In around the year 2000, Veena got really excited about researching waste materials as resources for steelmaking. During a plastic pollution, Veena had an idea to take plastic bottles using them to replace a fossil fuel in the process of making steel. Veena called that idea, “Green Steel”.
Veena had joined the New Inventors and won the Eureka Prize for scientific research in the year 2005.
You would usually browse for books at a library, right？But Veena does something quite unique, she browses for reusable trash in the trash can at her home. Whatever she thinks has value and cannot get wasted, if goes into a room Veenaś husband, Rama, calls it her waste collection. After she thinks she has collected enough of the materials, it goes with her to the SMaRT Centre in UNSW Sydney, as she is the director of the team of 30 members, consisting of young engineers and scientists.
Veena and Andrew Douglas, who recycles mattresses, came up with an idea to turn old clothing into kitchen tiles. The process took a while, but it was successful. What people like Veena Sahajwalla wants is to end the waste of old clothing or garments and reuse them to make them into different useful things. Do the Earth you love a favor and instead of throwing clothes away, recycle them! Let technicians or people like Veena to turn them into something new and useful to reduce pollution.
Thanks to new inventions, the waste of clothing has reduced. We had thought of a new idea in our homes as well! We have shoes, clothes, toys, books, and CDs that we don't want anymore. When we go shopping online, we leave the cardboard boxes the company we buy merchandise from packages our merchandise in. Then, we split the items we don't use anymore into two parts: Donation and Recycle. After that, we take the donation boxes to stores that take in donations. Then, we give the clothes we want to recycle to H&M to let them turn the dirty and old clothing to something new and clean. Now, try doing the same!
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