New Wardrobe? Recycle Old Clothes!
by Emily Buehler, Contributing Writer

With the school year starting, and crisp fall days around the corner, warmer clothing will be coming out of storage.  It’s always refreshing to get some new duds and to clean out the old.  My friends hold a swap meet, with everyone bringing bags of clothing they no longer wear.  We sort first (sweaters, dresses, pants, etc.), and then everyone browses around the living room, trying on new outfits.  The leftovers go to the PTA.

There are always a few items I’m embarrassed to bring to a swap meet: underclothes with holes, old stretched-out sports tops, lone socks.  If I can’t use it as a rag to clean my bike chain, it just hangs around the closet, ruining my space.

But no more!  The local PTA thrift shops accept unusable clothing or linens for baling to sell as rags if they’re dry, reasonably clean, and kept separate from clothing that the PTA can resell.  (The Goodwill store and OCIM thrift shop in Hillsborough do NOT take rags or other non-usable clothing.)  This will clear out your closet, but more importantly keep the rags out of the landfill.  In Orange County’s most recent waste composition study (April 2010), they found a surprising 6.3% of residential waste and over 7% of apartment waste to be textiles.  (See the County website here for all the waste sort data).  Your old socks don’t have to contribute to this number—give them a new life by recycling at the PTA.