Richmond Hill boosts textile recycling efforts

Used clothing, shoes, sheets and other textiles represent roughly 3-5% of the town’s residential garbage stream

Yorkregion.com
July 25, 2018
Sheila Wang

The Town of Richmond Hill is beefing up its efforts to raise public awareness of textile recycling.

Richmond Hill decided at its recent council meeting to launch an intensive campaign to inform residents about options for diverting textiles from the trash.

There are currently 70 to 80 textile donation bins scattered throughout the town, said Carol Moore, manager of communication services at the Town of Richmond Hill.

Residents of Richmond Hill diverted roughly 70 per cent of their waste in 2017. It means a majority of the waste has been either recycled, put in the green bin to be composted as organics, or picked up as yard waste. Only 30 per cent goes in the garbage, according to the Town of Richmond Hill environment and infrastructure services.

Meanwhile, used clothing, shoes, sheets and other textiles represent roughly three to five per cent of the town’s residential garbage stream. A large portion of them are recyclable.

Residents are encouraged to drop off their unwanted clothes and shoes at the donation bins or take them to used clothing stores, such as Value Village or Salvation Army Thrift Store.

“There are legitimate charities and there are not so legitimate charities,” said regional and local Coun. Brenda Hogg who put forward the motion to review the textile donation program in Richmond Hill.

Hogg said the town wanted to bring it to the public’s attention that there are donations bins operated by reputable charities and there are also “ghost bins” set up for business purposes.

Richmond Hill has decided to continue to use current property standards bylaw to monitor clothing donation bins in the community.

“It’s not the big municipal effort that Markham is making. It mostly just keeps it in the hands of the public for now,” Hogg said.

Markham launched its textile recycling program in October 2016, when the city began to set up new smart bins and remove for-profit clothing donation “ghost bins.”

The Town of Richmond Hill will promote textile recycling through regular communication channels such as its official website and social media.

Canadians on average purchase 70 new articles of clothing a year, which contributes to the 12 million tons a year of textile waste dumped into North America’s landfills, according to the latest investigation of CBC Marketplace.