The term “textiles” covers a lot. First of all, clothing – that's obvious. But also shoes, carpets, curtains, bedding and blankets. Used and thrown away, they used to end up in mixed waste containers. This will change in the new year.
This is our common production, so the more we manage to recover for reuse, the greater our personal contribution to saving each other from climate destruction. – Clothing that will be good, will be suitable for use, will be reusable, will go to people in need. We are mainly talking about people in crisis of homelessness. However, textiles, e.g. blankets and towels for animal shelters – points out Monika Pawlak from the Łódź City Hall.
From January 1, we will have to join this joint work on textile recovery.
– From January 1, this waste will continue to be collected in Poznań, as before, at Selective Municipal Waste Collection Points, called “junkyards” in Poznań, says Krzysztof Czechowski from the Municipal Management Department of the Poznań City Hall.
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In Łódź, apart from PSZOKs, segregation is to be facilitated by special containers located in housing estates, and in Częstochowa, appropriately marked bags are ready for distribution. In Gdynia, residents are already sorting and saving someone or something – they have been sorting textiles on a pilot basis for two years now.
– 90 percent of which were classified as first-class clothing, i.e. those that did not require any renovation, were immediately introduced into the second circulation – informs Marta Jarosińska from the Gdynia City Hall.
We use 2,700 liters of water to produce one shirt
Because all textiles – even very damaged ones – can be given a second life, provided that unnecessary things are not covered with everything that is mixed in the garbage.
– That's why there are such machines in laboratories, but also in industry, to be able to recover and have raw material for further work, which is what we are all working on today – explains Michał Puchalski from the Institute of Textiles of the Lodz University of Technology.
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There is something to fight for. Statistically, each European buys 26 kilograms of clothing a year and throws away almost half of it. It hurts to think that it takes 2,700 liters of water to produce a regular T-shirt. – The clothing industry generates 20 percent of global water pollution, industrial water pollution, but this also releases microplastics into the oceans – points out Aleksandra Włodarczyk, an expert on sustainable water, author of the website “Zwiadomy Konsument Mody”.
We have to change our habits, otherwise we will drown in clothes
Only every fifth T-shirt, slipper or sweater is segregated. And only one percent of recovered clothing is used to produce more clothes. We need to change our habits before we drown in clothes.
– That is why in Europe we are now all talking about the so-called extended producer responsibility, i.e. a situation in which the one who produces clothes will also care about what will happen to the clothes when they are no longer usable – says Paweł Marciniak from the Ministry of Climate and Environment.
But for this you need to take the first step.