Collecting system for textile wastes

In Sweden, we have a deposit system (pant) for PET and aluminium, and dedicated collecting system for recycling materials such as newspapers, glasses, metals etc. However, there is no such system for cloths and textiles, except the collecting system of the charity organizations for the reusing of the cloths. In Sweden, everybody in average leave 3 kg textiles to the charity organization and 8 kg textile wastes goes to the waste stations. Read the report about it here. In 2009, we opened a discussion on developing a deposit system for collecting cloths separately and not mix it with the waste materials. There have been so far a lot of discussions on such system in Sweden. Today, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published the results of a survey in Sweden, in which 70% of Swedes are in favor of having a deposit or particular collecting system for the cloths. You can read it here (in Swedish). Let's hope we don't see such this picture in the world in the future!


(The textile wastes in a landfill around Damascus, Syria)