Which got me thinking about all those items at thrift stores that don't get a new home, plus the things I don't think they'll want from my want-not pile. Well, not to encourage us all to inundate our local second stores with pure trash, but I discovered that places like Goodwill divert items deemed unsellable to textile recyclers. What do these recyclers do with the annual 2.5 billion pounds of said textiles? Nearly 50% of it goes to third world countries where it's used a clothing. About 30% is cut up into rags for places like car washing stations and maid services. Some of it is even used for stuffing furniture and sound proofing. Just 5% is unusable. Pretty amazing, eh? I learned these stats from the Garbage Maven over at the LA Times. She even started adding small fabric swatches to her compost pile and will see what happens in the break down process.
I get a lot of small fabric pieces from friends who know of my fabric fetish. I create really small quilted piecing with them and cut them into strips for my fabric bowls. I've even been know to toss the random threads from the sewing room floor out in the yard and watch the birds use them in their nests.
 |
| lil' tiny paper piecing with fabric scraps |
 |
| a fabric bowl created with fabric scraps |
I use old sheets for rag rugs. My good friend Gayle over at LulaHarp used cute vintage sheets for reusable shopping bags. Old clothes around here get cut up into rags for bike repair and oiling wood working projects. I recently took old bath towels and cut them into wash cloth sized squares, serged the edges of them for kitchen duty. Yeah, I know, kind of silly. But I do love my new serger that my friend Kirsten found for me at, where else, the Goodwill.
What goes around, comes around. . .happy upcycling ya'll!
0 comments:
Post a Comment