Back in the winter, I started seeing these mysterious orange bins show up throughout the 'Ville. We even had one in our 'hood. I meant to stop and take a closer look at one, and read the fine print on the bin but never took the time. A sign on the bins said "clothing and shoes only" so I deducted that it was a bin collecting used clothes and shoes for charities. Boy was I wrong. Just the other day, I investigated further and found out that the people behind these orange bins are not a charity. After reading the website for the organization called "USAgain" I found out that they recycle the clothes and shoes, but they don't recycle them in a green fashion - they bundle the items up and ship them off to a store somewhere that sells the stuff. Here's what their website had to say about it all:
The organization finds a place to host a box.
U'SAgain puts a box on the property for people to drop textiles in.
Next people come and drop off textiles they want recycled.
When the boxes get full, U'SAgain's drivers go to the sites and unload the boxes.
The drivers then bring the textiles to the warehouse.
Warehouse workers then sort the textiles into different piles.
The textiles get bundled together.
Once bundled, the textiles get loaded onto a truck and are shipped out to their desired location.
Once the textiles get to where they are going, people can buy them for a great price.
Now we know the truth behind the big orange bins. I thought this was a fairly new thing, but when I saw the above photo on the USAgain website, according to the gas prices on the sign, the picture must have been taken back in the 1970's.
3 comments:
I wondered what those bins were for; actually where I live (California) they are blue bins; I thought the same that you did; that they were for a local charities; I actually like the idea of recycling old clothes like this; I just threw away some old shirts of my husband's because they had holes in them, couldn't give them to Goodwill, and I didn't need any cleaning/dusting rags; now I'm going to save them and recycle them
just popped over to say congrats on being a guest editor's pick this week
betty
How funny that they bill themselves as a "textile recycling company". At first glance at their website you get the feeling they are turning these clothes and shoes in to some kind of new age fabric.
i worked at a clark station back in the day (early 90's) and i remember having all the grades for 88 cents for some crazy promotion. the highest it ever got was a buck thirty six during the first operation desert storm.
ps thanks for the link for the photo bubbles----
visit the rant anytime: rated r for swears and snarkiness
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