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Retailer VILLA, Community Recycling To Join Forces To Recycle Shoes, Clothes

Wednesday Philadelphia-based retailer VILLA Join the Movement, in partnership with Community Recycling, introduced in-store shoe and clothing recycling for all of their customers in the Philly Metro region. 
            With bins placed in all store locations, the goal is to raise awareness and education about the need to participate regularly in textile recycling, where all of the secondhand goods are destined for reuse.
            “Involving our customers in this type of recycling participation is a fun and easy way to make change by taking simple and meaningful steps,” said Chirag Patel, marketing manager at VILLA. “This partnership allows our community to help other people, help our city in waste disposal, and help our planet overall.”
            Community Recycling is an environmentally conscious textile recycling company that collects unwanted textiles and related materials that are responsibly distributed for reuse, resale and recycling in the U.S. and abroad. They have flipped the recycling triangle upside down and have mastered the most powerful ‘R,’ reuse, with more than 95 percent of the goods collected destined for reuse by those less fortunate.
            "Textile recycling needs to become as familiar to us all and as easy to perform as bottle, can, and paper recycling,” said Lisa Pomerantz, Vice President Marketing and Business Development at Community Recycling. “We are not there yet, but with clothing and shoe recycling at VILLA locations, we are taking the necessary steps to get us there.”
            The hope is that as customers purchase new athletic shoes, they will simply toss their existing pair in the bin marked ‘shoe recycling.’ Having a bin destined for ‘clothing recycling’ as well will allow them to come back once they have sifted through their drawers and closets and realized the excess we all hold onto.
            Textile reuse, resale and recycling have strong environmental benefits and allow consumers to contribute towards improving human conditions and eliminating poverty locally and overseas.
            The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that every person in the U.S. disposes of about 70 pounds of usable and re-wearable textiles each year. Items such as shoes and clothes are very dense and take up a lot of space in our dwindling landfill landscape.
            Despite the growing green movement, most people in the US are unaware that textiles can be reused, resold and recycled, creating local economies and jobs both here and abroad. Less understood is that discarded textiles also come with expensive waste disposal costs.
            “With the holidays just around the corner and the onslaught of new stuff that we will all get, it’s great to know that our partnership with Community Recycling allows everyone to do their part in a convenient way. We are confident our VILLA community will embrace this commitment to recycling and sustainability,” Patel said, “and we look forward to rolling out this program to rest of our VILLA locations.”


12/26/2011

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