Textile Recycling Is Booming In Bourne - Editorial
With summer weather finally here, we are probably not the only ones who spent the past few weeks digging through our closets and drawers and sorting through our clothes trying to decide what to keep and what to delete from our wardrobes. Things were eventually, albeit painfully, sorted into one of two piles: to be kept, or to be recycled.
You’ll notice there is no trash pile in our sorting equation—the reason being that trashing textiles such as clothing, hats, belts, bags, footwear and even mattresses has been a state violation for more than a year and a half.
The disposal ban on textiles, enacted by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in November 2022, didn’t change much here in Bourne, though. It mostly codified a practice that the town has been advocating—very successfully—for years.
But this is not news to our readers; we have written about these efforts before. What is newsworthy, though, are the latest numbers on the town’s impact on textile diversion, courtesy of facilities manager Phil Goddard at the Department of Integrated Solid Waste Management.
In 2023, 66.78 tons of textile materials were recycled via the town’s residential recycling center and the textile recycling containers at each of Bourne’s school buildings, including Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, the latter of which are provided courtesy of the PTA.
ISWM has also doubled the amount of textile recycling containers at the residential recycling center, from three to six, to handle the increased diversion of materials. Planet Aid, the Salvation Army and the Red Cross—all donation centers—have two bins each.
If you, like us, find yourself wondering amid your piles of clothes where exactly the line is with what can and cannot be donated, don’t fret; there are plenty of helpful resources available on the Town of Bourne’s recycling webpage, the state DEP’s webpage, and RecycleSmartMA, which has an especially helpful search tool called Beyond The Bin.
And contrary to popular belief, textiles of any condition are accepted by most textile donation centers, for-profit and nonprofit alike. Unless the item is wet, moldy or contaminated with oil or a hazardous substance, it will usually be accepted for donation. Even that stubbornly stained, worn out concert tee from a decade ago and the lone sock with the hole—that’s how valuable your textiles are! These items can and will be recycled, resold, reused, or otherwise repurposed. Take it from us: it’s much easier to part with your old favorite shorts and shirts when you know they’re being put to good use.
So go ahead: haul out the hangers, purge your closets, dressers and drawers, and toss those textiles—just not into the trash!