At Suay Sew Shop in Los Angeles's arts district, mounds of clothes are piled high in a warehouse. The T-shirts, socks, jackets and denim are surplus donations from the LA wildfires that community groups across the city were unable to distribute because they had too much already, or because the items were dirty, damaged or poorly made. Instead of letting the clothes go to a landfill, where they can cause a host of environmental problems, Suay has rescued 50,000lb of textiles so they can be cleaned, sorted and upcycled by professional designers and seamstresses/seamsters.
Since LA currently has no permanent textile recycling or collection, it's up to groups like Suay to save as many textiles as possible before they get dumped or exported. View image in fullscreen Textile donations utilized by Suay Sew Shop. Photograph: Courtesy Suay Sew Shop "To see the overwhelming influx of textiles donations here in Los Angeles in response to the devastating wildfires just shows how the current systems in place have failed us all," said Suay's co-founder and CEO Lindsay Rose Medoff.
"We have to draw the connections to our everyday consumption and disposal habits. Until we draw these connections, the same overproduction that is impacting our climate and resulting in these disasters will continue to strengthen." Experts say a surge in donations can actually impede relief efforts since volunteers have to handle sudden influxes of clothing when they are unwearable or unwanted.
Without a climate-.
