'Globally we throw about 85% of textiles into landfills.'
ABC News is taking a look at solutions for issues related to climate change and the environment with the series, "The Power of Us: People, The Climate, and Our Future."
One is for the place that says we take care of sneakers right, the place that takes undergarments, and the place that takes towels and bedding and says it won't go to the landfill.That's when my algorithm served up Trashie, one of a few companies saying they would take it all and make sure it doesn't end up in a foreign landfill.
70% of the world wears only second-hand clothing exclusively, Kristy Caylor, Trashie founder and CEO, said, and is backed up byAccording to the United Nations, the U.S. exports the most second-hand clothing in the world, more than two times the amount that China exported, according to the latest data from 2019. Most of the clothing exported ends up in either Latin America or Africa.
So I combined my six bags and packed my Trashie bags, then followed them down to their facility to see how they claim they add transparency and hundreds of "grades" in the sorting process to help ensure the clothes don't end up in the landfill. The sorting process begins once a "Take Back Bag" arrives at Trashie. The bag is opened up, and the items are analyzed to determine what can be reused and recycled.
Higher-grade products will be sent to a different part of the facility to be more closely analyzed in hopes of being resold to domestic stores.Despite various efforts to reuse or recycle many of the items the company receives, Caylor says that a lot of the products they receive still end up in Central and South America.However, Caylor says Trashie's efforts minimize the chance that unwanted clothing will ultimately end up as waste and in a landfill.
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