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May 27, 2014

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

City makes it fashionable to recycle old clothing

By Wu Huixin | May 27, 2014, Tuesday | Print Edition

BIG panda-shaped old clothes recycling bins sitting in some Hangzhou residential blocks are providing residents with a new and environmentally friendly way to dispose of their old clothes.

To date, 40 residential blocks, including Liushui Community, Xiandai Community and Datieguan Community, have been equipped with the adorable bins. The program was jointly established by the local non-governmental organization Green Zhejiang, Hangzhou Shengqi Wonderful Recycling Company and community committees.

One bin, measuring 1.8 meter in height, 1 meter in length and 0.8 meter in width, can hold 70 to 80 kilograms of clothes. Old leather shoes, purses and plush toys can also be put inside for recycling.

The panda’s “nose” is a knob that citizens can pull to open a tray to put clothes on. After closing the tray, clothes fall to the bottom of the bin. There is a locked door in the panda’s belly that clothes collectors sent by Shengqi Wonderful Recycling Company use to take clothes out at regular intervals. The design prevents clothes from being stolen or smudged by rain.

A panda was filled with old clothes after standing in Xiandai Community for just a couple of days, and about 100 kilograms of old clothes were gathered during the first week it was stationed there in early April.

Liushui Community has the same situation.

“The bin is so popular with residents that it is always packed with clothes for a few days. Our community is so large that some residents are unwilling to walk a long distance with a heavy package of old clothes to the bin. Therefore I hope more bins can be set in corners of the community,” said Tong Wei, Party secretary of Liushui Community.

According to the organizers’ plan, 2,000 to 3,000 clothes recycling bins will be spread in residential blocks around Hangzhou by the end of this year.

“When the project started in early April, there were only eight communities participating. A month later, the number went up to 40 and keeps increasing,” Li Wei of Green Zhejiang told Shanghai Daily. “More and more residential blocks, schools and enterprises call us, saying they want some clothes recycling bins.”

The collected clothes are used two ways. The comparatively new clothes, including cotton-padded jackets, down jackets and other winter clothes, are delivered to poverty-stricken or disaster areas for free distribution. The shabby clothes, leather shoes and bags and plush toys will be made into mops, reusable bags, leather products and other articles for daily use.

Charity events

To keep sanitation and prevent the spread of disease, all the old clothes are disinfected thoroughly before they come into reuse. To pay back communities, part of the new goods made from the old clothes will be distributed back to communities for free.

“How to distribute these items depends on community committees. Nonetheless, Green Zhejiang hopes to give them to poor people living in these communities,” said Li.

Green Zhejiang plans to build some “love wardrobes” and hold a series of charity events related to this project in impoverished areas in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, an iPhone app that will regularly announce information about old clothes collecting and recycling is scheduled to be launched at the end of this year.

According to China Textile Economy Research Center, the United States recycles 1.13 million tons of old clothes every year, among which more than a half are distributed to charity organizations and 226,000 tons are utilized to produce other daily products.

In contrast to the US, most of China’s cities simply bury old clothes in landfills or incinerate them, which harms the environment.

Hangzhou residents produce 100,000 tons of discarded old clothes every year, and burying them in Tianziling Landfill has been the only way to deal with them. Unlike clothes made of cotton and linen, those manufactured with chemical synthetic fibers cannot be degraded under natural conditions, so they would remain in the soil for many years.

“Even though Hangzhou launched garbage sorting in 2010, the result is unsatisfactory. I think recycling old clothes is the first and easiest step to cultivate the concept of garbage sorting,” said Li.

Since Tianziling Landfill — Hangzhou’s largest dump — will be completely full in five years and the to-be-built Jiufeng waste incinerator has encountered fierce opposition, the clothes-recycling project can relieve some of the city’s burden in dealing with daily garbage.

A ton of old clothes can be turned into 0.99 ton of nonwoven fabric, which can save 1.1 ton of textile raw material or 0.8 ton of cotton, plus water and oil resources.

“Recycling residents’ old clothes not only saves resources, but also reduces urban garbage. That’s a kind of public good worth encouraging,” said Li Zheng, manager of Shengqi Wonderful Recycling Company.

The company is a member of Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance for Waste Textiles Comprehensive Utilization Industry, an organization supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other central government departments with an aim of building a long-term system for recycling waste textiles.

“Old clothes recycling is a sunrise industry in Hangzhou, but to tell the truth, my company is now suffering a deficit during the startup period of this project. I hope the Hangzhou government can provide companies doing recycling business some preferential policies,” Li Zheng said.

Hangzhou


 

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