Clothing doesn’t remain wearable forever, and many times the reason it’s not worn anymore is because it’s not intact. But that doesn’t mean it no longer exists, and a lot of the time old clothing ends up in the trash and then in landfills. Estimates are that Canadians throw out around 500 million kilograms of clothing and fabric home items each year, and it’s something we all do and will likely continue to be doing as long as it’s not acceptable to leave the house naked. All joking aside, textile waste in landfills is a problem in Canada.
It’s a far stretch from what we do as a dumpster rental provider for Trenton and Colborne here in Ontario, but as is always the case any topic that is connectable to waste management interests is going to be of interest to us. So that’s what we’ll use as our blog entry here this time around. Have a read through to learn more about how a grading system may be effective for having much less textile waste ending up in landfills.
Call Load n’ Lift for Colborne disposal bin rentals and we can do the entirety of your Trenton jobsite cleanup with waste pickup and disposal using one of our dumpsters. Unlikely you’ll have mounds of textile waste, but if you do there’s no type of jobsite cleanup we can’t handle with whatever waste has been generated and needs to go ASAP.
Quality Call
Researchers from the University of Waterloo and Seneca College aren’t far from us here in the Trenton and Colborne area where we do dumpster rentals. Why we mention those folks here is they have developed the new method to evaluate a textile item’s quality, grading it from an A to an F not unlike what you used to see on your report card when you were a kid. This determination is used to figure out whether the textile can be resold or recycled, or whether it should in fact just be tossed.
Already so far with this testing and grading method they have found that more than half of textile waste in Canada could be reused, and darn near 25% of what is not recycled could be. We’re all well aware of how consumers buy, use and dispose of new garments, and the way in which ‘fast fashion’ more clothing is discarded more quickly than ever before. A lot of it ends up in the landfill, and less than 1% of the materials are recycled.
Another factor is the way Canada doesn’t have a standardized process for sorting textiles, and these researchers are suggesting a broader definition of textile waste that accessories, shoes and soft toys, in addition to clothing and home textiles is a good place to start. By sorting the materials to ensure consistency in grading and proper evaluation of the item’s condition, there’s more of a standardized reference point for where they should go from there.
The possibilities with this for better textile waste management are extensive as having a comprehensive assessment delivers more data and insights into waste management and prevention. Items that were able to receive a grade A to D classification made up more than 50% of the waste stream analyzed, so there’s merit in putting more resources into this. This finding emphasizes that there are many opportunities to divert textile waste in Canada.
Texting recycling in Canada is still a work in progress and needs to be better, unlike dumpster rentals Trenton and Colborne with waste disposal services. There’s also a connection to be made between better textile waste management and recycling and climate change with the way this waste can actually contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
If you need large scale junk removal in Colborne or Trenton and want to rent a dumpster that’s dropped off and then picked up once full you will be best served by a call to us here at Load n’ Lift. We can quite often have your disposal bin rental on site the same day and we are absolute pros at collecting it once you’ve filled it and then disposing of waste in the proper, legal, and most environmentally-friendly manner.
Seniors and Military families always receive 5% off disposal bin rentals and we have 6 different sizes of bins. 7 / 8 / 11 / 16 / 20 / 25-yard containers that we have ready to go as soon as you say you need them. Call Load n’ Lift anytime!
