Rhode Island currently recycles plastic, aluminum, glass, cardboard, and may soon add textiles to that list. Under a new law passed by the General Assembly last June, state environmental and waste officials are planning a public education campaign on how to recycle used clothing, fabric, and other textiles to divert them from the landfill.
The move is part of a larger series of actions taken up by state officials in recent years to reduce the amount of waste buried in Johnston鈥檚 Central Landfill, which is estimated to reach capacity by 2046. And while recycling clothing sounds foreign to American minds trained by a single-use, disposable culture, recycling clothing and any other fabrics used to be a common practice, once upon a time.
鈥淔abric used to have many different lives within a household until it became completely exhausted,鈥� said Reed MacLaren, a sustainable clothing educator and owner of The Sustainable Garment. 鈥淎fter that it would be made into something useful like part of a quilt, or stuffed into a pillow, or even end up in the hands of a rag man, who would collect spare cloth and find a way to make a buck off of it.鈥�