Abstract: According to the industry data, the amount of the waste textiles produced in our country is up to over 3 million tons per year. There will be over 5 million tons this year. At present, 26 million tons of used clothes need to be handled but the use ratio is less than 1%.
  According to the industry data, the amount of the waste textiles produced in our country is up to over 3 million tons per year. There will be over 5 million tons this year. At present, 26 million tons of used clothes need to be handled but the use ratio is less than 1%.
  Now, the recycle, reuse and processing of the waste textiles is basically at the primary stage in our country. The employees in this industry include recycle companies, individuals, private enterprises and so on. There are few formal recycle enterprises guided by the government.
  For a long time, the majority of used-clothes recycling is individuals in the countryside. They have no formal organization. Most of them are at a semi-underground state. According to the survey, these used-clothes recycle “guerrillas” have small scales, behindhand processing methods, no formal stations and a bad hygiene status. They even pass shoddy products off as ones of high quality. There’s an urgent need for standardized management.
  According to our traditional process mode, the used clothes is mainly exported for charity and donation. Internationally, the donation can only dispose 15% of the used clothes. In the light of the ratio, only less than 4 million tons of used clothes in our country is donated. That is much less than the total inventory.
  On the other hand, the fashions always change rapidly and people’s material life is also developed a lot. It makes people buy clothes with increasing frequency, and at the time, the clothes are weeded out with increasing frequency. The civil affairs departments and charities usually need winter clothes like down jackets, coats, cotton-padded jackets and overcoats for protection against cold. As far as the thin clothes which has a higher weeded-out ratio, it’s not regarded as the necessity from the aspect of traditional concept of poverty alleviation. The charity’s duty is to help the poor out of cold when necessary but not to dress them up.
  Some departments claim that they only accept new clothes for donation. The object is limited because the process of sorting, disinfecting, transportation and othe links are limited to the size and need certain cost. Red Cross in Wuhan also agreed with the idea and emphasized that it was better to donate cash.
  At the same time, used clothes are not allowed to circulate in our country at present. The reason is simple. It’s traditionally thought that used clothes are unhygienic. They may contains viruses, bacteria and parasites. Thus, the used-clothes market is banned in China.
  The amount of used clothes becomes larger and larger, while its outlets becomes less and less. Thus, lots of used clothes are threw as domestic waste into the landfill or the combustion field. This not only results in the resource waste, but also burdens the environment a lot.
  Various regions try to recycle used clothes
  In fact, the usages of used clothes are more than second-sale or donation. In addition to be used as clothing, they can also be processed into new materials. For example, they can be used as decoration materials of cars or buildings, cloth liner, plush toys’ filler, paper-making raw materials and so on. Some are made into duster cloth, mops and so on. Thus, used clothes are not trash but a environmental recyclable resource.
  “Used-clothes recycling” has become a new-type industry in the global.
  If we can make full use of the used clothes, the profits will be quite considerable. Once, an expert said, “Recyclers at the frontline has no need to worry. The waste textile recycling is definitely not an industry which has no profit.”
  Key words: used-clothes recycle; used-clothes news; used-clothes reprocess