Tuesday, January 06, 2009

I do not know how to dispose of synthetic clothing.

I'm making an effort to be more organized in the New Year, I swear I am. So far it's not going well; witness the fact that I'm just now getting around to the blog, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon. I also just realized that I'm hungry, and haven't eaten anything since a bowl of shockingly expensive cherries about four hours ago. (They were worth it, though. In fact, I think I'll have some more for lunch.)

Anyway, one of my organizational goals is to give away or throw away everything I don't wear any more, for whatever reason. That pink suit that was a staple of my work wardrobe, c. 1999? I will never have a reason to wear it again, and anyway it looks like something I wore in the '90s. To the clothing bank it goes.

And here's a fleece sweatshirt whose sleeves are just too grubby for polite company. It's years of ground-in pencil dust and newsprint and who knows what; it's time to retire this thing.

But it's made of some space-age fiber woven from (I think) recycled plastic bottles. If you held it to a flame, it would probably melt instead of burning. So what do I do with it? Is anyone recycling these garments made of recycled materials? I don't want to let it sit in a landfill forever, since it was already saved once.

I'm tempted to try to melt it down and see if I can turn it into Shrinky Dinks. Or maybe some insulating plastic for my windows.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it's ratty, I'd try to use it for rags before tossing it. Since it's made from recycled fiber, maybe re-recycle it?

Judy Bobalik said...

Many thrift shops bundle old clothes and sell them for rags. You could try that.