In the current times we live in today it is important for all of us to stay healthy and do our part to help stop the spread of germs. Wearing a mask has become the new social norm. People have taken it upon themselves to make their masks stand out. By wearing customized and personalized masks people have turned a device made with the intention of keeping germs and sickness away into a fashion trend.

Furniture companies and textile distributers mass produce yards upon yards of fabric every day to distribute to customers. It occurred to me that what if these companies were to instead of discarding the waste fabric to landfills or recycling plants, what if a portion of the waste fabric went towards custom masks that would show off the branding of the various companies from which they produce fabric. Many people have taken it upon themselves to use existing fabric they have in their homes and turn it into masks, or even venture off to find their own fabrics at craft stores to create their own stylish mask. Why can’t these leading textile manufacturers do the same? It is to my current knowledge and research that there are no current companies using waste fabric to create masks, but would it not be impressive if these leading manufacturers began to do so?

Looking at an article that monitors waste fabric from the EPA, we see that and average 11.2 million tons of textiles end up in landfills every year. From the EPA’s website you can read,

EPA measures the generation, recycling, composting, combustion with energy recovery and landfilling of textile material in MSW.

EPA estimated that the generation of textiles in 2017 was 16.9 million tons. This figure represents 6.3 percent of total MSW generation that year. Generation estimates for clothing and footwear were based in part on sales data from the American Apparel and Footwear Association. EPA also found that significant amounts of textiles enter the reuse market, but the amount of reused textiles is not included in the generation estimate. Reused garments and wiper rags enter the waste stream eventually and become a part of MSW generation.

The recycling rate for all textiles was 15.2 percent in 2017, with 2.6 million tons recycled. Within this figure, EPA estimated that the recycling rate for textiles in clothing and footwear was 13.6 percent based on information from the American Textile Recycling Service. The rate for items such as sheets and pillowcases was 16.3 percent in 2017.

The total amount of textiles in MSW combusted in 2017 was 3.2 million tons. This was 9.3 percent of MSW combusted with energy recovery.

Landfills received 11.2 million tons of MSW textiles in 2017. This was 8 percent of all MSW landfilled (EPA.Gov, 2019).

If textile manufactures were to use their waste fabric to produce masks the amount of waste fabric going into the landfill will be reduced, and the textile company itself would have a new way or marketing their products, and making profit from sales of masks.

Bibliography

EPA. (2019, October 30). EPA. Retrieved from EPA.Gov: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-material-specific-data