It started with a blue sock. I pulled it off and realized it had a big hole in the heel. I balled it up and was about to test my athletic skill by attempting a long, basketball-style shot into a waste can when I paused. Was that the right thing to do? Shouldn’t my sock go somewhere else?
We recycle a lot in my community. I sort metal, glass, plastic, paper and cardboard for pickup. At my house, we compost tea bags and rinse out milk bags. I take batteries and electronics to drop-off points, along with cans of paint. And that isn’t the end of it. But my sock? Could that be recycled?
Research led me almost immediately to Claudia Marsales at the City of Markham, a senior waste manager so committed to recycling she has been dubbed “the Queen of the Heap.”
‘Off everybody’s radar’
And the queen is making textiles her top priority. “For 30 years, we have been recycling newspapers,” she fumed. “Textiles has just been off everybody’s radar.” A recent study in Ontario concluded 85 per cent of discarded textiles end up in a landfill site, meaning just 15 per cent are recycled or reused. “We want to increase recycling of textiles to 100 per cent,” Marsales said firmly. That isn’t as easy as it might sound.
Some municipalities pick up textiles — Colchester, N.S., launched its program just last week — but there is a basic problem. Compared to glass or plastics, textiles don’t lend themselves to curbside pickup.
While bottles and cans can be thrown in a bin, ready for recycling day, that gently used sweater, which could be sold and worn again by someone else, can quickly become a smelly mess if mixed up with other waste. Or even if it simply rains.
Aided by a grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Markham, a city of roughly 350,000 north of Toronto, is rolling out a pilot program with a different approach.
Read the full story at http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/textile-recycling-1.3569138.