In honor of Earth week, the Service Leadership and Community Engagement office has put on the One Shirt Challenge National Collegiate Clothing Drive at UW.
This drive ran from Monday until Friday morning of this week and will accept gently worn clothing of all types and sizes.
“We have drop off locations in at the Union Info Desk and in the SLCE Office. We have also canvassed areas in the community and will be picking up clothes from those areas tomorrow morning,” Sagan Hunsaker, Alternative Breaks and Volunteer Programs Coordinator for SLCE, said.
Members of SLCE will begin to sort, weigh and deliver the clothes to various agencies in the community. Though the sorting begins today, anyone wishing to drop off clothes can do so at the SLCE office anytime today.
The One Shirt Challenge National Collegiate Clothing Drive takes place every year during Earth Week, when hundreds of colleges across the country compete against each other to collect the most clothes.The winning school not only receives the title of “Big Shirt on Campus”, it also will get 100 percent recycled shirts for the club or group that hosts the program. Winners are determined based on total clothes per student at the college or university.
“Recycling old clothes is not only good for our community, it is good for the planet,” Hunsaker said.
The average American throws away 68 pounds of clothing each year, according to the SustainU Cothing website, the company that runs this competition. Recycling clothing saves water, gasoline and creates job opportunities in the textile recycling industry.
This program also helps to reduce landfill waste, supports job training, and provides a means of affordable clothing to those in need.
