QUICK FACT: NYC residents discard of 193,000 tons of textiles every year. In 2007, efforts were underway Grow NYC has collected about five million pounds of textile for recycling.
The recycling of two million tons of clothing per year equates to taking one million cars from U.S. streets. Nearly 100 percent of textiles and clothing are recyclable.
More than 15 million tons of used textile waste is generated each year in the United States, and the amount has doubled over the last 20 years. The average lifetime of a cloth is approximately 3 years.
The United States Textile recycling industry removes approximately 2.5 billion pounds of post-consumer textiles each year from the waste stream and the industry creates more than 17,000 jobs. There are more than 500 garments recycling companies in the USA and majority of these companies are owned and operated by small and family businesses, each of which employs 35 to 50 workers.
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