A resurgence of secondhand shopping, new sorting methods and policy initiatives are all poised to help shift the needle on textile waste, speakers at a NERC webinar said. Thrift stores are a first line of defense against textile waste, and changing attitudes about thrifting and resale could help shape recycling systems and divert more material from landfills in coming years, said speakers at the Northeast Recycling Council’s material reuse forum webinar on Tuesday. Secondhand clothing is playing a powerful role in U.S. textile export markets, which in turn influences how and when textiles end up in recycling streams, said executives from thrift stores and researchers from the National Institute for Standards in Technology. A rising interest in thrifting, upcycling and clothing repair could help keep clothing in use longer, and when textiles are too worn out to wear, newer sorting technologies could help sort end-of-life textiles more effectively for better end markets, they said. Here’s a few takeaways from the webinar: Thrift stores: making landfill diversion look cool Thrifting is not a new concept, but Americans have become more and more receptive to thrifting in recent years due to a combination of rising expenses, tariff concerns and economic uncertainty. There’s also the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people had more time to look through their closets for unwanted items to donate, said Giana Manganaro Cronin, associate director of retail for More Than Words, a nonprofit youth job training program in the Boston area. More Than Words uses its thrift stores as a key way to offer job training and provide stable jobs for the youth who participate in the program, she said. The organization used to sell used books, but a fresh wave of interest in secondhand shopping spurred by the pandemic prompted the nonprofit to switch to a thrift store model instead. “This was not only a crucial pivot for the environment and to keep more things out of the landfill, but also do well for our business and our young people too,” she said. The nonprofit’s thrift stores, called Boomerangs, offer a 98% margin compared to its previous 62% retail bookstore model, and Manganaro Cronin expects that to continue in coming years. Gen Z shoppers are leading the trend, in part because reducing their environmental footprint is a core value for the demographic, she said. About 64% of shoppers in that age range look at resale options before buying new products, she said. Young shoppers are expected to continue influencing this trend, said Uli Stosch, chief officer of strategic development for Planet Aid, a thrift store nonprofit that has collected and reused more than 2 billion pounds of clothing since its inception in 1997. Citing numbers from an annual resale report prepared by online thrift company ThredUp, she added that the U.S. secondhand apparel market grew 14% in 2024, and the market is anticipated to reach $74 billion by 2029. The next step: Labor-intensive export and recycling markets More Than Words and other thrift stores like it does its best to sell as many items as possible. But for items that can’t sell, the organization often partners with secondary buyers, such as wholesalers who have access to a broad range of additional secondhand markets, Manganaro Cronin said. Stosch said thrift stores and other secondhand stores typically sell between 10% and 50% of their items, and a “small amount’ ends up going in the trash — mostly soiled items not fit for wearing or using. Another portion gets classified as “mixed rags” and baled for export, where they are further sorted for more reuse, resale or recycling purposes, she said. Many of these bales end up in Pakistan and Malaysia, where workers are trained to go through the time-consuming process of hand sorting each piece to separate out the quality clothes for resale while setting aside lower-quality textiles for other uses. “It’s very, very labor intensive to do this. You stand for long hours and have to pick through all the right things,” she said. Because it takes so much time to sort these items correctly, “there’s a limit to how much textiles we can process this way,” she said. From there, many of the clothes destined for resale go to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. More than 1.5 billion people around the world rely on second-hand clothing, she said, especially as an alternative to low-quality fast fashion brands. Guatemala has a particularly strong secondhand import market, she said. A 2025 study from Full Cycle Resource noted that the country imported 290 million pounds of clothing in 2023 and reused more than 91% of it, with women-owned clothing stores making up more than half of the industry. Complex streams, complex recycling options When clothing or textiles are too worn out or unfit to be worn again, and have already been downgraded to be used as rags or industrial cloth, recycling is one of the next best options. That’s when a new set of challenges kick in, said Katarina Goodge, a materials research engineer at NIST. Textiles are a complex and challenging waste stream to sort, in part because there are no set standards on how to handle the materials today, she said. Setting standards “would help scale up in efficiency in this system,” she added. Another problem: Textile sorting is largely done by hand, as opposed to other recycled materials that can quickly be sorted by a range of AI-enabled robotic sorting technologies, Goodge said. One reason hand sorting is the norm is because it’s tough to tell exactly what a garment is made of. “We need to know the fiber content to know how to recycle that garment,” she said, but the tag inside might simply say it’s made of 95% rayon and 5% “other.” A particularly itchy tag might get cut out of the garment entirely. “We need to look at a more systematic and technological solution to this,” she said – and technology is catching up. Handheld near-infrared devices can give insight into a garment’s material makeup, and when paired with AI or machine learning models, identifying fiber contents can become faster and more efficient. A handheld NIR scanner could be paired with hand sorting to guide garments into the right bins, Goodge said, and larger-scale solutions might be able to identify textiles while they’re on a conveyor belt, with a robotic arm component to pick off specific items. In the U.S., textile recycling infrastructure is not as common as recycling systems for curbside materials, though some companies have invested in such technology in recent years. A future of reuse, repair and policy change Legislation could make a difference in textile recycling initiatives in coming years, the speakers said. California’s extended producer responsibility for textiles law is in the process of being implemented, which will prompt more outlets for clothing donation, repair and recycling, Stosch said. Countries in the EU are also on the hook to implement similar textile EPR programs. Meanwhile, disposal bans in states like Massachusetts have prompted both thrift stores and lawmakers to wonder what to do with textiles that aren’t fit for resale but could be recycled into other products, Stosch said. Most thrift stores will accept apparel that’s torn or missing buttons, as long as it’s clean: “If it’s clean, it can be made into something else.” There’s also more room for creative ways to reuse or repair clothing before it goes to a recycling center, speakers added. For example, community repair events are good ways to teach basic sewing skills and inspire people to make something new with old apparel, Goodge said. “We used to have some infrastructure in the U.S. for repair, and that has largely sort of gone away, because it’s really hard to keep that economically viable,” she said. Yet repair efforts “have a huge potential to keep a lot of these garments as garments.” Read on WasteDive.

The Northeast Recycling Council (NERC), Brattleboro, Vermont, recently released its “ Northeast Flow of Glass Report ,” a regional analysis looking at glass container generation, collection, recycling, disposal, policies and end markets across the 11 states in the 11 Northeast states. The report was developed by NERC’s Glass Committee with support from state agencies, industry partners and stakeholders across the region and builds on the organization’s previous research into glass recovery, processing and end markets. NERC says it is meant to provide a comprehensive snapshot of how glass moves through the Northeast materials management system and highlights opportunities to strengthen glass recycling through policy, infrastructure investment and market development. According to NERC , key findings in the report include: Vermont (79.9 percent) and Connecticut (77 percent)—two states that operate deposit return systems (DRS)—recycled the highest share of glass containers relative to total glass container scrap generated. Connecticut led the region in per capita glass collection at 65.8 pounds per resident. New York collected the greatest total tonnage of glass containers for recycling at 281,065 tons annually, followed by New Jersey with approximately 197,000 tons. Five states in the region operate DRS programs that include glass beverage containers. All Northeast states provide residents with access to curbside and/or drop-off recycling programs. Reporting methodologies vary significantly among states, affecting direct comparisons of recycling performance. Recycled glass supports multiple end markets, including new containers, fiberglass, concrete applications and aggregate products. “Glass is one of the few packaging materials that can be recycled repeatedly with minimal loss of quality,” says NERC Executive Director Megan Schulz-Fontes. “The data show that strong collection systems and supportive policies can significantly increase glass recovery and create valuable feedstock for manufacturers.” NERC says its findings demonstrate that opportunities exist across the region to increase glass recovery through improved collection systems, stronger processing infrastructure and continued end market development. It also claims its analysis reveals “substantial variation” in state reporting methodologies, recycling requirements and collection systems. Per the report, while all Northeast states provide residents with access to curbside and/or drop-off programs, collection models differ considerably. Five states operate DRS programs, several off source-separated glass drop-off programs and Pennsylvania is the only state identified as providing source-separated curbside glass collection in select communities. NERC says these differences present challenges when comparing data across states and highlight the need for continued efforts to improve reporting consistency and transparency. The report notes that recycled glass serves a growing number of end markets, including new glass containers, fiberglass insulation, pozzolan for concrete, foam glass aggregate and other construction applications. “Many of these markets require high-quality glass cullet with low contamination levels, making effective collection and processing systems essential,” NERC writes. Although glass is heavier than many alternative packaging materials and can be more transportation-intensive when moved long distances, NERC reports that increasing local and regional collection, cleaning and processing capacity can improve environmental outcomes. The organization says recycled glass can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with manufacturing by replacing virgin materials and supporting a more circular economy. NERC says its findings suggest that strategic investments in collection systems, processing infrastructure and end market development could increase glass recovery rates throughout the Northeast while supporting resource conservation, economic development and reductions in GHG emissions. Read on Recycling Today .