Dive Brief:

• Municipalities in Illinois are forming a partnership with the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County (SWALCO) in order to establish a pilot clothing and textile recycling program.
• Bins will be installed by the public works facility, in an area where e-waste is collected. The receptacles can hold 500 pounds of fiber.
• SWALCO is pushing for a 60% landfill diversion rate in Lake County by 2020.

Dive Insight:

SWALCO will be working in conjunction with Chicago Textile Recycling, a company that sells items for reuse or to be recycled into new products. The average consumer discards around 60 pounds of apparel annually, according to SWALCO's recycling director. Illinois is not the first state to adopt textile recycling: San Francisco recently introduced a program called "Zero Waste Initiative," which focuses on collecting used clothing and textiles. The city is trying to reach a goal of zero waste by 2010.