Old toys? Trash. Rotten food? Trash. Clothes that don’t fit anymore? Trash. A toy that once brought joy and endless hours of entertainment for a decade to a child will most likely end up in the local dump. A T-shirt that was once part of an outfit at least once a week is now part of the weekly trash pick-up. Once perfectly good items are now unusable garbage because of their slightly imperfect nature. People tend to throw away things they no longer consider up-to-par with their standards, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Although billions of pounds of clothes and textiles are thrown away each year, they should be donated to people who aren’t as fortunate as it could help them adapt to harsh seasonal weather and help the environment by reducing landfill waste.

What do you do with the clothes that no longer fit? Do you toss it like its useless trash or put them to a good use? For a large majority of Americans, the answer is the former. The average American will discard around 81 pounds of clothing a year: which adds up to around 26 billion pounds of clothing and textiles which ends up in landfills.i

But what’s the big deal? I doubt you’ve heard of a turtle choking on an old sock or a raggedy hoodie trashing the air. Out of sight out of mind, right? Wrong.

As more and more things get thrown on top of the mountain of landfill garbage, it pushes down on the lower layers of trash, compacting it. As the trash gets tighter and tighter, the air is pressed out, leaving ideal conditions for anaerobic bacteria which thrive in oxygen-free environments. As these layers of clothing decompose, the bacteria release methane gas- a greenhouse gas which is far more potent than the popular carbon dioxide.ii Despite mostly being perceived as a minor issue, landfills account for more than 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions, placing them at third- just after livestock and transportation.

Not only are discarded textiles dangerous for our atmosphere, but for the ground around it as well. The dyes and chemicals that are used to treat clothing can build up and contaminate the earth around it. This means that even if landfills are someday somehow cleaned up, vegetation will not be able to grow for a long time after all the trash and waste is excavated. But to be this way.

There are many places to toss old clothes that are infinitely better than your trashcan. There are many locations that will gladly accept clothing donations for people who need them the most. During earthquakes, the shaking and shifting of the ground kills people. During tsunamis, the intense force of water and flooding kills people. During hurricanes and tornadoes, the lifting and relocating of debris and even buildings kill people. But during winter nights the cold doesn't kill people, the lack of warm clothing kills people. Homeless people die on the streets from exposure to the freezing and unforgiving temperatures of winter. In extremely cold areas, homeless people in danger of frostbite, immersion foot, and/or hypothermia have an eightfold risk of dying in comparison to non-homeless individuals.iii For many poor people, clothing is shelter. Whether it be a -50 degree winter night in the North or a 100+ degree summer day in the midwest, people need suitable clothing for the area that they live in.

America produces far more clothing than is needed, as evidenced by the mass amounts of it that ends up in the dump. On average, around 84% of unwanted clothes is thrown away. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Around 95% of the clothing that is thrown away can be reused or recycled in some way.iv

There are billions of pounds of usable “trash” in our landfills, so the question is; what do we do with it? The answer is simple- and it is a simple phrase that has been implemented in our minds since grade school. Reduce, reuse, recycle. The first step in reducing the amount of trash in our landfills is to, well, reduce! And this means reducing what we buy and use. So the next time a decent looking jacket with an unnecessary zipper catches your eye, think about how many times you would wear it before you never touch it again. Wonder how long it will be before it goes out of style (probably not long). The next step is to donate or reuse any unwanted clothing currently collecting in your closet. By utilizing old clothes, people can make beautiful works of art that they can wear on their back. Thrifting is a fun and easy solution to wasted textiles. Sure it may be tedious to sew together clothing, but it can also be a fun pastime or hobby. Finally, if you have old clothes that serve no purpose to you anymore, there may be someone out there that may see it as a perfect fit for them. Donate. Donate to charities, donate to shelters, donate to family members. In the end it really doesn’t matter who you donate to because the important thing is that it doesn’t end up in our already crowded landfills. By donating, you can do your part in contributing to a cleaner, healthier Earth. Many people do not care to do their part in reducing waste because they feel that their contributions will be for nothing. After all, it is a big world, change has to start from somewhere. The little things do, in fact, add up.