New California law requires fashion industry to take back old clothes free of charge – Daily News

Old clothes are piling up? Does your wardrobe seem a bit outdated? It happens to everyone. But what to do with unwanted shirts, pants, dresses and shoes?

California has a new answer.

On Saturday, September 28, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that requires companies that produce clothing, footwear and textiles, including curtains, towels and bedding, to implement the nation’s first mandatory unwanted clothing return program.

The goal of Senate Bill 707 is to reduce the millions of tons of unwanted clothing that ends up in landfills across the state. Some of it is donated to second-hand stores, but when second-hand stores can’t resell it, they often resell the outdated clothing to other companies that ship it in bulk to developing countries. In Ghana and Chile, unwanted clothes accumulate in mountains up to 15 meters high in deserts and along rivers, causing a huge garbage problem.

“Too much of this clothing ends up in landfills or incinerators,” said Fiona Hines, legislative spokeswoman for the California Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in Sacramento.

“We hope this nation-leading law will reduce clothing waste,” she added on Sunday, “and lead us into a future where we produce high-quality clothing that we can repair and reuse for longer, as well as recycle when they will reach the end of their lives.”

Under the new law, companies that produce clothing and other textiles sold in California will be required to establish a nonprofit organization by 2026 that will set up hundreds of collection points in thrift stores, launch return shipment programs and take other steps in all California stores. 58 counties will collect and recycle their products by 2030.

“By 2030, convenient textile drop-off sites across the state will provide a free and easy way for everyone to join the solution,” state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, who wrote the bill, said Sunday. “California is once again at the forefront of innovation.”

The problem is big. About 1.2 million tons of clothing and textiles were thrown away in California in 2021, according to CalRecycle, the state Department of Recycling and Resources Recovery. While 95% of them are reusable or recyclable, currently only 15%.

The accumulation of clothing waste is exacerbated by “fast fashion” – a trend in which clothing companies produce cheap clothes designed to be worn only a few times in line with changing fashions.

This bill is part of a trend among California lawmakers to require companies that produce products that are difficult to dispose of to take responsibility for recycling and reusing them, rather than leaving the costs and challenges to local city and county governments.

One example: Under state law since 2018, consumers pay $10.50 when purchasing a new mattress in California. This money helps fund the industry-led Mattress Recycling Council program, which has opened 240 collection sites and now recycles 85% of old mattresses in the state.

Similar “extended producer responsibility” programs for paints and carpets have been implemented in recent years. The idea is to shift the burden from consumers and government – who have to pay for the expansion and construction of landfills – to industry, which benefits primarily from the sale of products

The bill was supported by environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Californians Against Waste and the California Product Stewardship Council. It was also supported by Goodwill. The new nonprofit group that the apparel industry will have to set up will likely pay Goodwill and other thrift stores for used clothing that thrift stores can’t sell. It may also be profitable for thrift stores to set up collection points in their stores.

France, the center of the global fashion industry, already has a mandatory clothing recycling program. Other states in the U.S. are watching California to see if it works.

The bill was initially opposed by industry groups led by the California Chamber of Commerce and the American Apparel and Footwear Association, which represents more than 300 large apparel companies. After negotiating some changes with Newman, including allowing an industry group to conduct an assessment and work with CalRecycle to set recycling goals, the approach was changed to neutral.