Clothes The Loop NY Launches with a Splash!

By Dan Rain, Recycling Coordinator, Town of Bethlehem
Chair, NYSAR3 Textile Recovery Campaign

NYSAR3’s long anticipated “Clothes the Loop NY” statewide textile recovery campaign kicked off on America Recycles Day, Saturday, Nov. 15th, and has been making waves throughout the state! A huge thanks goes out to everyone at NYSAR3 who has worked diligently thus far, and our campaign partners, the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART) and the Council for Textile Recycling (CTR)—our team efforts are now paying off. As NYSAR3 President Dave Lupinski put it, “we have been successfully spreading a consistent and uniform textile collection and recycling message across New York State.”

As of Nov. 21st there have already been over 135 different placements in the print, broadcast and online media about ClothesTheLoopNY, according to Paul Bailey, who works with SMART’s PR firm, the Fallston Group. Paul developed the excellent media toolkit for the campaign, and estimates this media cover has a market value (had they been paid placements) of over $100,000! A few of the many regions that received press coverage include, Albany/Bethlehem, Herkimer, Ithaca, Jamestown, Syracuse, Utica, and Watertown.

Dozens of kick-off collection events throughout the state have already started the (yarn?) ball rolling towards our goal of significantly increasing textile recovery. We’ve developed an on-line post-event survey to gather data--please complete this brief but important survey if you coordinated a collection event in your community or are planning a future collection!

More event results will be shared after folks complete the survey, but here is a snapshot from a couple collections who have reported thus far. Congratulations everyone!

  • At the DEC Central Office, they collected 365 pounds of unusable textiles at their NY/America Recycles Day event, as well as a variety of other materials for recycling. Region 3 will be doing a community collection at the end of the month.

  • In the Town of Bethlehem, we partnered with the local school district, farmers market and the American Clothing Recycling Company, based in Glens Falls, NY to hold our collection, where 348 households attended. They brought more than 17,000 pounds of clothing, footwear and textiles. This averages out to nearly 2 lbs for each household in Town, or over 0.5 lbs for every Bethlehem resident.

  • In keeping with their habit of recycling in big ways, Onondaga County’s November 15th Collection Event at Destiny USA Mall in Syracuse received over 31,000 pounds of textiles; about six truck loads from approximately 500 residents.

  • Here’s a report from the Western Part of the State

In addition to holding collection events, many communities also passed resolutions supporting Clothes The Loop NY, made pledges in support of increased textile recovery, and expanded existing clothing and textile collection programs. Visit www.NYTextiles.org for details and updates on the campaign!