Cloth Collection Clothes Recycling
The Clothes collection and recycling program are collecting and re-selling unwanted clothes and shoes for the benefit of Campus California TG and of course, the environment. The project is run by dedicated teachers from CCTG, employed staff, participants in the Development Instructor programs and volunteers.
For more information with the Clothes recycling project contact our people in the Bay area directly.
The Clothes collection and recycling program are collecting and re-selling unwanted clothes and shoes for the benefit of Campus California TG and of course, the environment. The project is run by dedicated teachers from CCTG, employed staff, participants in the Development Instructor programs and volunteers.
For more information with the Clothes recycling project contact our people in the Bay area directly.
Contact-mail: jan@cctg.org
phone: 510 302 7117
The Aim
At the moment (according to the EPA) 85% of people’s unwanted clothes and shoes are being dumped into the landfill. Campus California TG offers a service to the community by providing a clean and efficient way to collect these clothes and recycle them instead of increasing our landfills. To do this, we make agreements with local business owners, landowners, property management companies, corporations, schools etc to host our drop off boxes where the public can drop their unused/used clothes and shoes at their convenience. Currently we have over 300 boxes placed in the Greater Bay Area.
Recycling this way makes it possible for us to reuse 95% of the items donated. The clothes which are in good shape (approximately 85%) can be sold and worn again; the less desirable items (approximately 10%) are recycled into rags, furniture stuffing etc.
The good thing about recycling is that the more that is collected to recycle/reuse, the more we can earn for our projects, and the better it is for our environment. As a non-profit organization, the money we earn goes to support the training of volunteers who do development work in Africa and Central America. These projects include AIDS education, Schools for Street Kids, Teacher Training Colleges and Micro-Credit programs, to name a few. Textile recycling is a creative way to benefit the local community and environment while at the same time earning much needed funds to be able to support worldwide development. It’s a WIN, WIN situation!
In 2006 over 3.2 million lbs of clothes were collected from the Greater Bay Area!
Our part in the recycling industry
Here I would like to tell you something about the clothes and shoes recycling industry and what is our part in it. We (CCTG) place our green drop-off boxes in front (or on the side, or at the back J) of different businesses. Currently we have over 400 boxes in 9 counties of the Greater Bay Area. We are constantly adding new places so the best way to find one near you is to call us (510 932 3839) or email jan@cctg.org The general public (i.e., you) can then put their unwanted clothes and shoes into the boxes.
Our drivers regularly go by the boxes and collect the donations. Most of the boxes are emptied twice a week, but many three times or even more often, depending on their individual place.
Everything is being brought into our warehouse. Currently we are located in San Pablo, Richmond. We have two warehouse workers, local Richmond people, handling the clothes as they are brought in. We do not sort the clothes, only the obvious house garbage (we get that too!) is removed, along with bulky items like electronics and/or books. We cannot use wet or heavily stained clothes either. These are put aside and unfortunately end up in garbage as well. Regretfully a lot of these clothes would not get ruined if the people would put them into a bag before donating them. A simple plastic trash-bag protects the clothing from getting wet or dirty and thus would enable us to be more effective in recycling. Approximately 5% of the weight we receive every week is trash of different types. This is usually about 3,000 lbs per week.
There are three ways we process the clothes before they are shipped off. Some of the clothing gets sent without packing, usually to local thrift stores or similar customers. This is what we call “Loose loads”. The loading is done by hand.
Another way is called “Capsacking” where we use big capsacks, each of them weighing about 350 lbs. This makes the storing and handling of clothes much easier and faster (forklift) both for us and also our customer.
Our last, and most used method is baling. We have a bailing machine which makes about 1,000 lbs weighing bales. Before this operation we remove the shoes as the high pressure in the machine would damage them.
When we have enough clothes we load them into a trailer or a sea container and send them to the customer. At this point our (CCTG's) role in the whole recycling industry ends and others take over.
But the journey of the clothing collected in the Bay Area is not at the end, not by far. Our customers are located all around the globe. Locally, we supply some places directly here in the Bay Area, L.A., East Coast, Central and Southern America, Europe (mostly East), Southern Africa and sometimes even Japan or elsewhere in Asia.
What happens with the clothes?
After the shipment arrives, everything has to be sorted. There are more than 180 different types and quality categories. Approximately 25% of the amount is so called SHOP “A” or SHOP “B” quality, which are sold in the Thrift sores and worn again by other people.
The rest is called “MIXED RAGS” and people put a big effort to finding out ways of re-using these materials. The next table breaks down the materials donated into our (and other’s) collection boxes, or as we call it: “CREDENTIAL CLOTHING”.
Here is some examples on how the different components of “Mixed rags” are re-used.
Shoes: they get sold and worn, or if they are not repairable, they may be used as an addition in insulation materials for building industry. The same fate usually awaits synthetic materials if they cannot be recycled like i.e. PE bags.
Woolen materials: get re-span and re-used in new clothes
Cotton wipers: re-used as cleaning materials for industry
Wearable clothes: usually sold into 3rd world countries. They might be a little damaged, out of fashion or otherwise not-sellable in a developed world thrift store.
I will use an example from south-eastern Africa. The clothes usually arrive by sea and then are directly sold from the container or warehouse to the wholesalers. A person, usually a local businessman or company takes a truckload of clothes (might be baled in 100 or 200 lb bales) and delivers them more inland into another town. There, the load is directly sold off the truck or through local warehouse/second-hand stores by bales.
A local person comes and buys a 100 lb bale of clothes for let’s say 30USD. Then he goes to the market and starts to sell the clothes for 30 or 50 cents a piece. He/she is usually able to make enough surplus to support the family by much needed cash. For many people of Sub-Saharan Africa (and many other places) this is also the only way they can afford to buy clothes.
There have been studies about the effects of the second-hand clothing being “dumped” into 3rd world countries and what it does to the local economy. The effects can be very bad if the clothes are just given out for free. People who receive them will not appreciate them because it costs them nothing, no business is generated and once the inflow of clothes stops, people are left in worse situation than they were before.
On the other hand if the clothes and shoes are bought, sold, and paid for, this generates a much needed economical movement in the otherwise stagnating or declining economy. Of course this varies from country to country, but in case of the poorest ones that lack the strength to develop their own clothing industry (because of materials, skilled workforce and investment availability, not even mentioning the global competition from Southeast Asia) or the local production is still too expensive for the poorest to afford it, the import of second hand clothing has very positive economical effects. There is a whole chain of people who make their living by buying, selling, repairing and/or re-sewing the clothes and shoes which many of us would not wear any more.
What should you know about donating?
How can anybody help us create development and reduce the landfills? (or you just have a full closet of clothes and don’t know what to do with them)
1. Put the clothes into a plastic bag (33 gallon plastic trash bag is the winner!)
2. Tie the bag firmly (very important, please!)
3. Drop the bag into any of our (or someone else’s, but ours is better, of course!) collection boxes
4. Enjoy the satisfying feeling of helping those who need it (and giving less work to the city waste management services!
The Aim
At the moment (according to the EPA) 85% of people’s unwanted clothes and shoes are being dumped into the landfill. Campus California TG offers a service to the community by providing a clean and efficient way to collect these clothes and recycle them instead of increasing our landfills. To do this, we make agreements with local business owners, landowners, property management companies, corporations, schools etc to host our drop off boxes where the public can drop their unused/used clothes and shoes at their convenience. Currently we have over 300 boxes placed in the Greater Bay Area.
Recycling this way makes it possible for us to reuse 95% of the items donated. The clothes which are in good shape (approximately 85%) can be sold and worn again; the less desirable items (approximately 10%) are recycled into rags, furniture stuffing etc.
The good thing about recycling is that the more that is collected to recycle/reuse, the more we can earn for our projects, and the better it is for our environment. As a non-profit organization, the money we earn goes to support the training of volunteers who do development work in Africa and Central America. These projects include AIDS education, Schools for Street Kids, Teacher Training Colleges and Micro-Credit programs, to name a few. Textile recycling is a creative way to benefit the local community and environment while at the same time earning much needed funds to be able to support worldwide development. It’s a WIN, WIN situation!
In 2006 over 3.2 million lbs of clothes were collected from the Greater Bay Area!
Our part in the recycling industry
Here I would like to tell you something about the clothes and shoes recycling industry and what is our part in it. We (CCTG) place our green drop-off boxes in front (or on the side, or at the back J) of different businesses. Currently we have over 400 boxes in 9 counties of the Greater Bay Area. We are constantly adding new places so the best way to find one near you is to call us (510 932 3839) or email jan@cctg.org The general public (i.e., you) can then put their unwanted clothes and shoes into the boxes.
Our drivers regularly go by the boxes and collect the donations. Most of the boxes are emptied twice a week, but many three times or even more often, depending on their individual place.
Everything is being brought into our warehouse. Currently we are located in San Pablo, Richmond. We have two warehouse workers, local Richmond people, handling the clothes as they are brought in. We do not sort the clothes, only the obvious house garbage (we get that too!) is removed, along with bulky items like electronics and/or books. We cannot use wet or heavily stained clothes either. These are put aside and unfortunately end up in garbage as well. Regretfully a lot of these clothes would not get ruined if the people would put them into a bag before donating them. A simple plastic trash-bag protects the clothing from getting wet or dirty and thus would enable us to be more effective in recycling. Approximately 5% of the weight we receive every week is trash of different types. This is usually about 3,000 lbs per week.
There are three ways we process the clothes before they are shipped off. Some of the clothing gets sent without packing, usually to local thrift stores or similar customers. This is what we call “Loose loads”. The loading is done by hand.
Another way is called “Capsacking” where we use big capsacks, each of them weighing about 350 lbs. This makes the storing and handling of clothes much easier and faster (forklift) both for us and also our customer.
Our last, and most used method is baling. We have a bailing machine which makes about 1,000 lbs weighing bales. Before this operation we remove the shoes as the high pressure in the machine would damage them.
When we have enough clothes we load them into a trailer or a sea container and send them to the customer. At this point our (CCTG's) role in the whole recycling industry ends and others take over.
But the journey of the clothing collected in the Bay Area is not at the end, not by far. Our customers are located all around the globe. Locally, we supply some places directly here in the Bay Area, L.A., East Coast, Central and Southern America, Europe (mostly East), Southern Africa and sometimes even Japan or elsewhere in Asia.
What happens with the clothes?
After the shipment arrives, everything has to be sorted. There are more than 180 different types and quality categories. Approximately 25% of the amount is so called SHOP “A” or SHOP “B” quality, which are sold in the Thrift sores and worn again by other people.
The rest is called “MIXED RAGS” and people put a big effort to finding out ways of re-using these materials. The next table breaks down the materials donated into our (and other’s) collection boxes, or as we call it: “CREDENTIAL CLOTHING”.
Here is some examples on how the different components of “Mixed rags” are re-used.
Shoes: they get sold and worn, or if they are not repairable, they may be used as an addition in insulation materials for building industry. The same fate usually awaits synthetic materials if they cannot be recycled like i.e. PE bags.
Woolen materials: get re-span and re-used in new clothes
Cotton wipers: re-used as cleaning materials for industry
Wearable clothes: usually sold into 3rd world countries. They might be a little damaged, out of fashion or otherwise not-sellable in a developed world thrift store.
I will use an example from south-eastern Africa. The clothes usually arrive by sea and then are directly sold from the container or warehouse to the wholesalers. A person, usually a local businessman or company takes a truckload of clothes (might be baled in 100 or 200 lb bales) and delivers them more inland into another town. There, the load is directly sold off the truck or through local warehouse/second-hand stores by bales.
A local person comes and buys a 100 lb bale of clothes for let’s say 30USD. Then he goes to the market and starts to sell the clothes for 30 or 50 cents a piece. He/she is usually able to make enough surplus to support the family by much needed cash. For many people of Sub-Saharan Africa (and many other places) this is also the only way they can afford to buy clothes.
There have been studies about the effects of the second-hand clothing being “dumped” into 3rd world countries and what it does to the local economy. The effects can be very bad if the clothes are just given out for free. People who receive them will not appreciate them because it costs them nothing, no business is generated and once the inflow of clothes stops, people are left in worse situation than they were before.
On the other hand if the clothes and shoes are bought, sold, and paid for, this generates a much needed economical movement in the otherwise stagnating or declining economy. Of course this varies from country to country, but in case of the poorest ones that lack the strength to develop their own clothing industry (because of materials, skilled workforce and investment availability, not even mentioning the global competition from Southeast Asia) or the local production is still too expensive for the poorest to afford it, the import of second hand clothing has very positive economical effects. There is a whole chain of people who make their living by buying, selling, repairing and/or re-sewing the clothes and shoes which many of us would not wear any more.
What should you know about donating?
How can anybody help us create development and reduce the landfills? (or you just have a full closet of clothes and don’t know what to do with them)
1. Put the clothes into a plastic bag (33 gallon plastic trash bag is the winner!)
2. Tie the bag firmly (very important, please!)
3. Drop the bag into any of our (or someone else’s, but ours is better, of course!) collection boxes
4. Enjoy the satisfying feeling of helping those who need it (and giving less work to the city waste management services!
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