The City of San Jose added textiles to curbside collection in 1993 by
having residents put them in the "4th container" that included all
containers. Needless to say the textiles came in very contaminated. At
that time the haulers were to work with a local non-profit to handle the
textiles once collected. After a period of time, Goodwill Industries
dropped out as they couldn't handle the ketsup covered textiles.
Sometime later, the City gave permission for the hauler to educate the
resident to put the textiles in bags.
In the end the thrifts were dropped from the collection process. At the
same time, given the changes in demographics*, textile collections at
their traditional sources were also going down. Hense my concern that
city supported textiles collection programs will further reduce the
revenue stream for the thrifts. Then society will have to come up with
another source of funds for job training, drug and alcohol rehab programs
and services to the homeless.
* Many of the new cultures moving to the US do not have a tradition of
giving their goods to charities. That is one reason the thrifts in
Silicon Valley have seen a reduction (taking into account population
growth) of goods donated to them.
I hope Los Angeles can come up with a program that can include the local
reuse infrastructure.
Sincerely,
Ann Schneider
SchneiderAnn@juno.com
430 Hillwood Ct.
Mtn. View, CA 94040
650 962-0404 / 650 988-1368 fax