Every year Santa Barbara County throws away more than 11 million pounds of usable clothing and household textiles into its very limited local landfill space. Textile Waste Solutions offers an environmentally and economically friendly alternative to this wasteful practice.

Textile waste makes up approximately 8% of the total waste in California. While the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 97% of post-consumer textile waste is recyclable, unlike paper, plastic, and aluminum waste recycling, most communities do not have systems in place to address the fabric component of the waste stream.

Textile Waste Solutions provides the key that gives clothing, bedding, belts, shoes, and soft toys - virtually anything made from fabric - a second lease on life.

We reuse and recycle these items in several different ways, including:

• Immediate reuse: providing clothing for needy people in third-world countries.
• Simple alteration of use: converting clothing and textiles into industrial rags.
• More complex recycling: converting clothing and textiles into fibers to be used for industrial materials such as upholstery or acoustical soundproofing.

1. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 97% of post-consumer textile waste is recyclable.
2. By simply donating all of your used textiles to participating thrift stores, you can help to significantly reduce the burden on our landfills.
3. Over 70% of the world's population uses secondhand clothes, so your old clothes can be used to help people in need.
4. By recycling textiles you benefit your local community by creating local jobs that generate local tax revenue.
5. Textile recycling companies, such as ours, work closely with charitable institutions to find new homes and uses for old clothing and fabric items, thus reducing the operating costs for thrift stores and freeing up funding to house, feed, and train the less fortunate.
6. Textile recycling requires less energy than any other type of recycling.
7. Textile recycling does not create any new hazardous waste or harmful by-products.
8. Unwearable textiles can be reused as rags by paint stores, machine shops, auto shops, government, business and industry.
9. Unwearable textiles can be converted for industrial uses such as noise reduction or upholstery.
10. Each new home that is built uses 100 pounds of rags - isn't it preferable that these be locally generated recycled material that was saved from a landfill?