Clothes Recycling
The Clothes collection and recycling program is collecting and re-selling unwanted clothes and shoes for the benefit of Campus California TG and the environment. The project is run by dedicated teachers from CCTG, employed staff, participants in the Development Instructor programs and volunteers.
The collected clothes are sold wholesale on the used clothes market (domestically or to Central and South America) and the generated income is used to pay for recruitment of international volunteers, to cover the running expenss of our school and scholarships for participants who are not able to pay the full program fee for CCTG's volunteer programs.
For more information with the Clothes recycling project contact our people in the Bay Area directly.
Contact:
email: 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 600 boxes placed in the Greater Bay Area.
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 the 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 or Teacher Training Colleges; only 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!
Over 4.6 million lbs of clothes were collected from the Greater Bay Area in 2008 alone!
Our part in the recycling industry
Here you can read something about the textile recycling and what is our part in it. We (CCTG) place green drop-off boxes at different already existing businesses. Currently we have over 600 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 to 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 the individual location. We have 4 trucks and currently employ 8 drivers to make sure all the boxes are emptied on time.
All donated items are brought into our warehouse. Currently we are located in Richmond, CA. We have three warehouse workers, handling the clothes as they are brought in.
Some of the clothing gets shipped out as it comes, usually to local thrift stores or similar customers. This is what we call “Loose loads”. The loading is done by hand.
Most of the customers prefer to have the clothing shipped in bales. That is more economical, you can pack a lot more into a big sea container. We have a machine which makes bales weighing about 1,000 lbs. Before this operation we separate the bags of shoes from the clothing because the high pressure in the machine would damage them.
Finished bales:
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 or Central and South America.
Please note that Campus California TG does not engage in any way in retail sales of donated items. We also do not export to African countries at this time (2007-2009). Our customers are usually sorting centers or exporters and CCTG has no control whatsoever over their business or other further down the supply chain. We do however strive to employ responsible business practices and to the best of our knowledge we do not sell to companies that would engage in unfair or destructive business practices in respect to the final customers, people who will eventually wear the clothing in third world countries.
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 can be sold in Thrift sores, mainly in the US and worn again by other people.
The rest is called “MIXED RAGS” and people put a big effort to finding ways of re-using these materials. The next table breaks down the materials collect from the boxes, or as we call it:
“CREDENTIAL CLOTHING”.
Here are some examples of how the different components of “Mixed rags” are re-used:
Shoes: they can be worn by other people, or if they are not repairable, they may be used as an addition in insulation materials for building industry.
Woolen materials: can be re-span and re-used in new clothes
Cotton wipers: can be re-used as cleaning materials for different industries
Wearable clothes: are usually sold into 3rd world countries. They might be a little damaged, out of fashion or otherwise not-sellable in a US thrift store.
I will use an example from south-eastern Africa, I saw this during my stay there. (The clothes were from somewhere else, not the US) The clothes usually arrive by sea and then are directly sold from the container or warehouse to the wholesalers. A local businessman or company takes a truckload of clothes (might be 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.
A person can come and buy a 100 lb bale of clothes for let’s say 30USD. Then he/she goes to the local market and sells the clothes for 30 or 50 cents a piece. He/she is able to make some surplus to support the family by much needed cash. For many people of Sub-Saharan Africa (and other places) this can be the only way they can afford to buy any 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 could be very bad if the clothes are just given out for free in situations other than disaster relief. People who receive them will appreciate them very much the first time, but they might just start to expect that every time they need something, they will get it for free. At the same time 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. This varies from country to country, but in case of the poorest ones that lack the strength to develop their own clothing industry (because the lack 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 can have positive effects on the economy.
Hundreds of thousands of people make their living by buying, selling, repairing and/or altering the clothes or 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 we like it more if it's ours!) collection boxes
4. Enjoy the satisfying feeling of helping those who need it
5. Please do not try to donate large appliances, electronics (TV's and such), furniture and mattresses. If an item is too big to put into a box, we can't use it anyway and the hosting businesses do not appreciate stuff lying around on their property!
Please do not leave any items around the box!
If the box is full, please give us a call and we will send a driver to collect it. There might also be a box nearby where you could drop of your donation and we can give you the address.
Thank you for your support!
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