Rethink how you Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Abstract

The term recycling might bring to mind the phrase, "reduce, reuse, recycle," or the big blue bins that never seem to be clearly marked as to what items belong in them. As taught in grade school it is important to recycle materials like paper, plastic, and glass. However, recycling has a much greater capacity than most people realize. Recycling unsuspecting items such as computers, batteries, and you guessed it, clothing, can drastically reduce the amount of garbage that goes into landfills. By teaching others about the importance of recycling clothes, if all clothes are recyclable, and how to recycle clothes, the act of recycling could make a much bigger impact. In fact, recycling clothing can be just as simple as dropping your water bottle into the infamous blue bin. It is essential for us to do what we can and educate one another about the impact recycling can have if done together. Recycling not only ensures less trash build-up in landfills, but it can also increase the amount of sustainable products manufactured. In turn, those sustainably made products could be recycled time and time again. If there is a gap of knowledge that is keeping people from recycling things like clothes, will there ever be enough people taking initiative to actually make a difference? This research aims to determine if enough people are recycling their clothes and just how many people must recycle to make a difference in the world.