The average North American throws away over 80 lbs. of clothing a year. Most of this clothing sits in landfills for decades, even though 90 per cent of those items could be reused or repurposed.
To make it easier to reuse or repurpose those items and also divert them from landfills, Kidney Clothes, in partnership with Peel Region, is promoting the repurposing of these textiles with a convenient home pickup program. All cloth and cloth-based items will be accepted including clothing, linens, curtains, accessories (purses, belts and wallets) as well as outerwear like shoes and coats.

Kidney Clothes hopes this program will also assist in public education about the importance of reducing textile waste and working toward a circular fashion industry, reducing the environmental impact of an item from production to the end of its life cycle.

UK-based retailer John Lewis has launched a pilot buy-back program in partnership with recycling specialist Stuffsr. The scheme will be made available to a small number of customers as a precursor to rolling out a full-scale version later in the year.

Similarly, fashion retailer Guess has announced a partnership with I:CO in an initiative which facilitates the collection, certified sorting, reuse and recycling of used apparel and footwear.