Planet Aid Post: August 2019

Post Working Together for the Global Community Vol. 6 No. 1

What happens to my donations?

You’re looking at your packed closet, thinking about what you want to get rid of and what you might want to keep. It’s too full and you don’t wear a lot of it; it’s time for much to go.

After you’ve sorted through it, pulling out everything and creating a good get-rid-of pile, it’s time to decide what to do with that pile.

You could throw the clothing away. But, this is not an optimal choice for a number of reasons.

First, it’s not like most of the clothing you’re getting rid of is in shambles; it’s just not your fav anymore, right?

Second, throwing clothing away means it just ends up in a landfill, creating all sorts of environmental problems (check out the story below “Donating mitigates climate change” to learn how clothing in landfills hurts the environment).

Third, in the trash, it’s not going to helping people around the globe.

Donating mitigates climate change Over time, Americans throw away 85 percent of the clothes in their closet, but almost everything can be reused or repurposed in some way. Planet Aid makes it easy to keep textiles out of landfills by placing our signature yellow bins in convenient locations in 19 states and Washington, D.C. Every pound of clothing collected

by Planet Aid (around 90 million a year!) translates directly into significant environmental benefits.

Reduction of greenhouse gases Perhaps the most important impact of textile recycling is stopping the acceleration of climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) being put into the atmosphere.

We normally think of CO2 as coming from a car’s tailpipe or an industrial smokestack; however, when solid waste—such as textiles—is buried in landfills, they release greenhouse gases as they decompose—including methane, a particularly destructive greenhouse gas.

saved from disposal. This means that Planet Aid, by collecting 90 million pounds of textiles each year, effectively saves 270 to 360 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every single year.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a passenger car emits 11,000 pounds of CO2 a year. So, Planet Aid textile collections is the equivalent of taking 24,000 to 32,000 cars off the road.

Fewer insecticides Next, there has been far less insecticides released into the environment due to Planet Aid’s efforts. As with the decrease in CO2 released into the atmosphere due to less manufacture of new textiles, Planet Aid is reducing the use of insecticides by lessening the need for more cotton (the most commonly grown crop for textiles).

Insecticides used in fields leads to water contamination and harm to the environment—especially insecticides used on cotton, which have included some of the most hazardous nerve agents on the planet: aldicarb, parathion, and methamidophp.

Given that approximately 0.02 pounds of pesticides are used to produce one pound of new clothing, thanks to Planet Aid, there is approximately 1.8 million pounds fewer insecticides washing into our waterways each year.

Continued on pg. 7: MITIGATING

So instead, you donate your clothing to Planet Aid. You find your closest big yellow donation bin (at planetaid.org/find-a-bin) and drop your items off.

But then you think about where your stuff will go and to whom? Will your T-shirt stay in your neighborhood?

Does it matter? Why? If these thoughts have crossed your mind, you are not alone. The fate of used clothing donations has been the source of some confusion, and even controversy, for many people.

In this issue of the Planet Aid Post, we shed light on what happens to your clothes once they’re dropped in a donation bin. We describe how the global trade in used clothes works, how donations are used, for what purpose, and by whom. We also talk about the important factor of helping the environment through textile collection.

We hope that we’re able to answer some of your questions and provide you with a better appreciation for just how much your donation matters.

Additionally, the other end of the clothing life-cycle spectrum— the production of textile fibers and the manufacture of cloth— burns considerable quantities of fuel that releases CO2 into the atmosphere. By reducing the amount of textiles thrown away, we can reduce the manufacture of new textiles, thereby lessening CO2 release.

How much CO2 is saved through clothing reuse? According to CO2List.org, approximately three to four pounds of CO2 is saved from entering the atmosphere for every pound of clothing that is

Planet Aid Thrift Store shopper gathers a cart full of thrifty finds.

Planet Aid Post, page 2

Working Together for the Global Community

Building climate change resilience in rural Belize In this era of a rapidly changing climate, extreme weather has impacted the poor and most vulnerable communities the worst. One example is found in the Mayan communities located in the remote regions of the Toledo District of southern Belize.

“The idea is to have people be able to bounce back after a natural disaster.”

—Elizabeth Muschamp, HPP Belize Project Manager

The Toledo District is the wettest region of the country, with approximately 200 days of rain per year. However, most of this rain is mild and results from the almost daily pattern of cool air moving down from the region’s mountains and condensing moisture from the humid coastal air.

The subsistence farmers of Toledo have, in the past, relied on indigenous knowledge of their environment to practice their trade. However, the recent rapid onset of extreme weather has radically altered historic patterns and stressed the adaptive capacity of rural communities.

For example, a flash flood struck the area in February 2018, causing food shortages.

Farmers in Toledo specialize in growing mata hambre—a dry season corn crop—and the flooding at harvest time destroyed fields and created a desperate situation.

Continued on pg. 7: BELIZE

Fruit trees were distributed among families in the Toledo District of Belize to help rebuild crops following the flood.

Fishers’ clubs in Brazil In 2016, Planet Aid’s partner, Humana Povo Para Povo em Brasil, started a new kind of Farmers’ Clubs project: one that focuses on those who fish.

adoption of more sustainable and profitable fishing techniques and the implementation of oyster and macroalgae cultivation.

Clubes de Pescadores

Encouraging activism and supporting gender equality

The Fishers’ Club Project (Clubes de Pescadores) works in 30 fishing communities in the greater metropolitan area of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and reaches approximately 1,200 families engaged in fish or shellfish harvesting. Bahia Pesca, as the project is locally known, is cofinanced by the State of Bahia and other donors. It has been organizing local residents into cooperative “clubs” in which the fishers receive training in sustainable fishing methods, are encouraged to work together to solve problems, and receive access to needed equipment. They are also linked to local markets where their product can be displayed and sold.

In the Salvador area of the state of Bahia, many inhabitants rely on the ocean for food and income. But fishing families in Bahia are often only able to catch enough to feed their families, and they have thus struggled to rise from crippling poverty.

Providing technical assistance The project employs 13 fishing engineers and a veterinarian who help guide the project in a sustainable and environmentally friendly direction. Club members learn new methods of agroecology and marine conservation, and experiment with ways to improve production using low-cost materials, budgeting, and results planning. The fishing engineers work with the whole chain of production to ensure the proper industrialization of aquatic organisms, while the veterinarian performs a supervisory function, emphasizing the sanitation of the processed products.

They accompany families of fishers throughout the process, guiding the

Along with organizing fishers into clubs, the project encourages the fishers to become active community members, working on local councils and committees, taking initiative as local leaders, and engaging with municipal fishing organizations.

In this way, the fishers are able to challenge local bylaws to reflect their needs and make a larger impact in their communities. They seek to guarantee rights and encourage local governments to support actions aimed at sustainable development.

The fishing community in Bahia has a large number of women, and 72 percent of participants in Bahia Pesca are women, but not many hold leadership positions within the local organizations. Bahia Pesca is seeking to change this by encouraging women in the Fishers’ Clubs to take on a leadership position. Through the project, women increasingly participate in public decision-making spaces and local events, becoming examples of income generation and community leadership.

Stimulating Initiative The fear of failure affects many people living on the margin. They often want to avoid trying anything new that could risk their livelihoods. HPPBrazil’s approach involves promoting collective entrepreneurship, which reduces the fear of the participants as they are all in it together and can help each other problem solve and achieve success. It is a way for families to have a more dynamic vision of their own community and each other.

Planet Aid Post, page 3

Working Together for the Global Community

Reincarnating your unwanted clothing for a triple play When you donate used clothing you set a large number of possibilities in motion. Your shirt could be reincarnated as someone’s new prized possession; it could return to life as the insulation in your walls, padding under your carpet, paper for your printer, stuffing for your new couch, or even as a new shirt for your back.

The Fate of Used Clothing Donations in the United States

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Clothes = jobs = income Planet Aid, like all other clothes collection charities, sells the used clothing it collects. That is how the used clothing trade works, and it’s actually really good for the U.S. citizens, clothing disposal, and the global economy. Why? For starters, only about 20 percent of all donated clothing in the U.S. is able to be sold in local thrift stores, leaving a whole lot left over.

The rest is sold to wholesale recyclers in shipments routed all over the globe.

Along the way, lower grade clothes are made into other materials (like carpet padding, insulation, rags, and much more) at processing plants that employ thousands around the world. While the best garments may wind up in high-end boutiques or vintage shops, the vast majority of the clothing go to lesserdeveloped countries, like those in subSaharan Africa or South America.

However, there is no shortage of used garments in the U.S. Several billion pounds of unwanted textiles are produced annually, but only 15 percent of this vast quantity is recycled.

Sold to traders in developing countries

By donating a shirt, you remove it from going straight to what is known as the “solid waste stream.” This is the universal dumping ground for items we don’t recycle. Our solid waste usually winds up in one of two places: One, it gets buried in a landfill—which contaminates soil and groundwater, consumes valuable land space, and emits some horrific odors. Or, two, your old clothes are torched in a huge incinerator tossing microscopic particles into the air that we then breathe, and spewing out clouds of greenhouse gases that heat up the atmosphere.

Learn more about how recycling textiles directly benefits the environment on page 1 of this Planet Aid Post. Look for “Donating mitigate climate change.”

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U.S. Thrift Stores

Environmental benefits

Neither option is good for us or our planet. By recycling, two good things happen: we eliminate the need to produce a new item and we remove an item from going into the solid waste stream. Win number one is all about protecting the environment and reducing wear and tear on our Earth.

When Planet Aid and other charities sell the donated clothes they collect, they receive only a few hundred dollars per ton.

In short, it takes a lot of used clothing to raise a little money.

All U.S. Used Clothing Donations

Recycling truly has multiple benefits.

The synergy of the Planet Aid recycling model expands these possibilities, creating a “win-win-win” scenario.

Here’s how our triple win works.

It’s a big job.

We all have to do it.

Much more effort is needed to save more textiles from unnecessary disposal. Clearly, we must work harder to make it easier to recycle.

Sold to foreign and domestic grading companies

school teachers in Angola, Malawi, or Mozambique, where student to teacher ratios may be as high as 100 to 1.

20%

of original donations sold to U.S. consumers in thrift stores

25%

reprocessed and made into other products*

20%

5%

30%

unwearable unusable wearable unwearable clothes sold cotton material clothing to consumers sent to made into in developing wiping rags landfill** countries

* Knitted wool and acrylic fibers are reprocessed into yarn for sweaters and other similar products. Other fibers are reprocessed for use in upholstery, insulation, soundproofing, carpet padding, and building and other materials. ** Recycling companies are currently developing additional products that will make this last 5% usable.

“Only about 20 percent of all donated clothing in the U.S. is able to be sold in local thrift stores, leaving a whole lot left over. The rest is sold to wholesale recyclers in shipments routed all over the globe.”

After shipping, a half-ton bale of used clothing may change hands multiple times as it is sold and re-sold and parceled out into smaller bundles. A 100-pound bale, for example, might be bought by a single mother in Guatemala where, in a small stall in the market of her village, she resells your donated clothes. A shirt or pair of jeans you bought new for $40 might sell for a couple of dollars. Here the single mom makes a profit to buy other necessities like food or medicine.

This is where the reincarnation of your donated clothes happens again.

Something that was considered of little value when donated, now has recaptured worth and a new life.

This is win number two—used clothes provide job opportunities and incomes for the people who handle what you put in a Planet Aid bin. This same scenario is repeated hundreds of thousands of times every day around the world.

The sale and resale of used clothing has created a complex commercial network that benefits many thousands of enterprises, large and small.

Support may go to a bridge education program in India called Step-Up, which brings out-of-school children back to their appropriate educational level.

Or perhaps a Child Aid development program that receives Planet Aid support to establish clean water supplies, improve hygiene, and reduce water-related infections.

Planet Aid also supports several successful programs that aid smallholder farmers in developing nations—many of whom are women—so they can improve their harvests, conserve water resources, and increase their income.

Other Planet Aid–supported programs help control the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.

The simple act of donating Last year alone, Planet Aid provided $10 million in funding or in-kind gifts (from the sale of used clothes and grant support) to international aid programs in 12 developing countries. Since Planet Aid started in 1997, it has contributed close to $100 million to projects on three continents.

Your donation on three continents This happened because people like you Win number three occurs when Planet Aid uses the funds from clothing sales to pay for development programs.

Dollars raised from your donation may help train much-needed primary

decided to donate your used clothing rather than throw it away. Your one simple act resulted in multiple benefits for thousands all over the world. Be an active recycler and frequent clothes donor. Be a champion of the “win-winwin” global recycling model.

EUROPE

• Generates 1.5-2 m annually

• Large sorting cente in across Europe

• 10-12 percent of u clothing (only top q sold in secondhand

UNITED STATES • Generates 1.4 million tons annually • Exports 800,000 tons annually • 20 percent sold domestically in thrift stores • Non-wearable material is reprocessed into fibers for upholstery, insulation, soundproofing, carpet padding, building and other materials

AFRICA • Very large secondhand clothing market

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA • Very large secondhand clothing market in most countries • Imports from U.S. primarily

• 80 percent of population wears secondhand clothes

• Imports from U.S., Europe, India and Pakistan

• Grading companies in Chile • Cotton “wipers” exported to U.S.

Source: Garson & Shaw LLC

The world is hungry for your used clothing Clothes recycling started soon after the wonder of woven fabric was perfected. After learning how plant fibers and animal wool could be spun and fashioned into cloth, ancient civilizations quickly came to prize fabrics the world over. Producing it was labor and resource intensive, so the use and reuse of clothes was not only a common activity, but necessary.

The true tale of traveling pants

When a clothing item is donated to a U.S. charity, it may be sold locally in a thrift shop. However, in reality, a relatively small quantity of clothes donated in the U.S. are used locally or stay within the country’s borders.

Donated clothing is more often shunted between continents and handled Today, the recycling of clothes and textiles is a multi-billion-dollar global multiple times before being worn again or remade into another product. enterprise employing millions of people in both advanced and lesser developed countries. With 9 to 12 billion pounds of used fabric generated After collection, clothes may be sold to a grading company to be sorted by in the U.S. annually, it’s no surprise that used textiles rank as the eighth- material, type, and quality—ranging from “cream of the crop” garments largest U.S. export. for a high-end vintage shop, to “low-grade” T-shirts that are shredded and remade into polishing cloths. In between are multiple categories, like wearables for warm climates, or items like belts and caps. Only “shop U.S. buried under mounting clothes pile quality” garments are hung in one of 12,000 thrift stores across the U.S. With each American disposing an average of 67 pounds of textiles a year, there is a huge amount of unwanted textiles being thrown into Amazingly only 20 percent of all donated clothes are sold in thrift stores landfills—600,000 tons each year. Recycling is the best solution to the or secondhand shops. The bulk of all donations are eventually exported mounting pile of unwanted clothing. Not only does recycling protect our to overseas markets where the demand for used clothing is high. Around environment, it serves to provide usable clothes to the millions who may 20 percent is remanufactured into industrial wiping cloths, and another 25 never own a new garment in their lifetime. Used clothes and shoes also percent is converted back to raw fiber for reuse as insulation or paper serve as a global source of jobs and income for one-person shops, small products. In the U.S. alone, nearly 3,000 recyclers handle the surplus of textile goods. businesses, and international firms that employ many more.

million tons

ers located

used quality) d shops

RUSSIA • Large import duty on secondhand clothing • Only the highest quality most expensive selection of used clothing is imported

EAST ASIA • Collections in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan • Also imports from U.S., Europe, India and Pakistan • Large sorting centers in Malaysia and Philippines

INDIA AND PAKISTAN • Residual secondhand clothes are imported and sorted by grading companies • Wearable clothing is extracted from “mixed rags” and sold locally or shipped to Africa

n s

• Sweaters made from recycled yarns

e,

AUSTRALIA • Generates secondhand clothes that are sold through local shops and exported

• Cotton “wipers” exported to U.S. and Europe

From an international recycling firm to a one-person shop

It is no surprise that some economic experts have dubbed the global used clothing trade a perfect business model, which transforms something When the used and collected clothing is ready for export, it is pressed otherwise unwanted into an income-generating source for millions. At into 1,000-pound bales—either sorted or unsorted, depending on the next the same time, the environment gets a double reprieve: used clothes are buyer’s needs. Then, those bales are typically shipped in sea-going, 40- diverted from landfills or incinerators, and valuable natural resources (like foot containers. water and land) are spared by the reduced demand for new clothes.

Upon reaching a destination port in Africa, Asia, Europe, India, China, or South or Central America, bales are routed to overland locations by truck or railcar. Along the way numerous transactions may occur. Bales may be divided into smaller bundles for sale to wholesalers or distributors down the line. Ultimately, an aspiring entrepreneur in a Mozambican village may buy a 100-pound sack for resale to his friends and neighbors. A wearable pair of work shoes originally purchased new for $50 in the U.S. may protect the feet of a farmer in Malawi for just a couple of dollars. A used children’s polo shirt re-bought for 45 cents may serve as daily wear for a student in primary school in India.

A perfect business model The used textile trade is truly international. A “mixed rag” bale from the U.S. or the U.K. for example, may travel directly to Dubai to be graded or sorted before it is repackaged for a distributor in Mozambique. Or, an industrial grade shipment may be routed to an Indian or Chinese factory to be remanufactured into seat upholstery for cars made in South Korea.

Used clothes—the engine behind humanitarian aid For non-profit organizations, the collection and sales of clothes is equally beneficial as the recycling of clothing provides needed cash to fund humanitarian projects. Planet Aid is among the nation’s largest charitable clothing recyclers. On average, Planet Aid alone collects nearly 90 million pounds of unwanted clothing a year—the equivalent weight of a 254 jumbo jet. Since 1997, this and other funding has allowed Planet Aid to provide close to $100 million in direct or in-kind support to programs addressing health, education, job training, disease-prevention, farming, and child aid on three continents.

Activating a powerful synergy And to think it all starts with a simple donation of a kid’s shirt or a pair of too-tight designer jeans. It is this small act, repeated by many across the nation, that sets in motion a synergistic ripple effect, creating multiple benefits for people and the planet.

Planet Aid Post, page 6

Working Together for the Global Community

The changing climate forces millions into poverty From rapidly melting ice caps to frequent hurricanes, the impacts of climate change can be seen in the environment all over the world. And by this point, there are numerous studies that tell us what will happen to the environment if global temperatures keep rising.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that if the world continues its current actions, global temperatures will definitely reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, a very dangerous point.

The IPCC warns that the world needs to aggressively phase out fossil fuel emissions by mid-century to avoid catastrophic planetary changes and the loss of small islands and major coastal metropolises, like New York City and Mumbai, which risk disastrous flooding as the oceans rise.

Climate change and people While we’re all concerned about losing beautiful landscapes and Ellis Island, what about the impact of a warming climate on people?

This is something the United Nations is keeping an eye out for and has studies which show how climate change is affecting (read: hurting) impoverished areas. According to the U.N., since 2000, people in poor and developing countries have died from natural disasters at rates seven times higher than in wealthier countries. The U.N. stated that without immediate intervention, climate change—which exacerbates food scarcity and health threats—has the potential to force 120 million people into poverty by 2030.

The inequality of climate change The U.N. says that developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the financial costs related to climate

change. Why? Because those in poverty tend to live in areas that are more susceptible to climate change; where housing is generally less resistant to environmental impacts, where there is a lack of available resources, and where individuals receive minimal support from social and financial safety nets.

Climate change is expected to increase the number of deaths due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress by 250,000 per year between 2030 and 2050, elevating the impact of these treatable health disorders that already push 100 million people into poverty every year.

Even though impoverished communities will be the most harmed by climate change, they have contributed the least to global warming emissions. The poorest half of the world’s population is responsible for just 10 percent of carbon emissions; while the richest 10 percent are responsible for a full half.

Seeing the impact of climate joined the response to help the change in Mozambique people affected by Idai and Kenneth; The real-life impact of climate change on the impoverished can be seen in the country of Mozambique. Two cyclones hit the country within one month of each other: Idai on March 14, 2019 and Kenneth on April 25. According to Humanitarian Response, cyclone Idai left nearly 2 million people in need.

ADPP Mozambique, a Planet Aid sister organization and project partner, has been working with organizations in Mozambique to assist victims of cyclone Idai. One of ADPP’s teacher training colleges was severely damaged during Idai with many in fear for their lives during the storm. (See the first-hand account of the storm below.)

Hundreds of other organizations and thousands of aid workers have

however, the response effort is severely understaffed and underfunded. As devastating natural disasters continue to rise around the globe, the need, and therefore lack of help and funding, will also continue to rise—leaving millions in poverty.

What Can You Do? Planet Aid has been working for over 20 years to reduce textile waste, thereby saving landfill space, water, taxpayer funds, and reducing the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. We also help fund development projects in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, many of which focus on training communities to be conscious and resilient to climate change. (See page 2 and page 7 of this Planet Aid Post for a glimpse of three of our programs.)

Aida Manuncha Ernesto’s account of the flood and her family’s escape from Idai in Lamego, Mozambique “The tragedy that happened in Lamego with the cyclone started during the night of Thursday [March 14, 2019] around 10 pm. The roofs started flying away and the houses were being destroyed until practically 4 am. Then it rained until 1 am on Saturday.

“We went to sleep on Thursday and slept all night despite the bad weather.

But on Friday morning we woke up around 5 am with the floods. When we

woke up and put our feet out of bed, we put our feet in water. We suddenly saw water coming out of the school and also from the river.

“There was a lot of water and it kept on rising. Soon it was already on our knees, and we could still feel the water rising and rising, and we could not escape.

“God knows how we did it, but we managed to open the doors and get

out. We ran away and hid in the tent of an acquaintance in the market.

Some people, including students, had to move across the water with the help of teachers, who used ropes to get the students out of the water.

“Others went to their roofs, others suffered physically, some were rescued, but many lost their lives because of the flooding. [All students and staff of the teacher training college are alive.]

“There were many, many deaths in Lamego. And people continued to find bodies as the water receded.

“The population of Lamego, and much more of Mozambique, has nowhere to be. The children are starving. They have no shelter. They have no food.

“It’s the most difficult situation I’ve seen in my life.”

Planet Aid Post, page 7

Working Together for the Global Community

Investing in the future School lunch programs in developing nations represent a key investment in the future. Planet Aid’s Food for Knowledge school lunch program in Mozambique has been helping students since 2012. This program, made possible by a grant under the USDA’s McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, is nourishing more than 83,000 children in Maputo Province.

The meals help alleviate hunger and allow children to better concentrate on lessons, while helping them properly grow and develop. This investment in the children’s future yields many returns and helps to ensure the nation’s wealth by strengthening what economists call “human capital.”

The World Bank estimates that 70 percent of the wealth of developed countries comes from the skill, talent, and knowledge of their citizens, or, in other words, their human capital.

However, in developing countries, this human capital accounts for only 40 percent of a nation’s wealth.

Students at a Food for Knowledge school interact with our photographer.

Belize

(continued from pg. 2)

Building a Bulwark Against Climate Impacts To help the farmers of Toledo, Planet Aid is supporting a project that is increasing local adaptive capacity.

Humana People to People Belize, a local development organization, member of the Humana People to People Federation, is the project implementer.

The project relies on the Farmers’ Clubs model of agricultural development, an approach that centers on organizing individual growers into formalized cooperative groups. Together, the farmers learn about new methods and practices, share experiences, and build collaboration as they put new techniques into practice.

A Three-Pronged Approach First, the project seeks to improve physical infrastructure and early

warning systems to reduce risk to flooding and natural disasters. It has provided farmers with two-way radio equipment, offering a key lifeline to communities who can be isolated during a flood, and has installed river and rain gauges to provide advance warning of an imminent flood.

Second, the project improves the resilience of farmers to recover from climactic disruptions with climate-smart agricultural techniques that emphasize crop diversity and intercropping.

Farmers are being taught how to create organic fertilizer using sheep manure, rice hulls, among other ingredients. By making their own fertilizer, farmers are reducing their expenses while boosting production.

Third, the project has been increasing efforts to educate the public about climate change and the need for better disaster preparedness. The focus of the educational program has been on teaching the community how to best prepare for natural disasters, what it looks like when one is about to strike, and what to do when it does.

Additional investment in Africa’s human capital could increase the continent’s gross domestic product by $95 billion according to some estimates, and thus help reduce poverty. One of the best ways to do this is by expanding access to quality education.

Secondary graduation rates in Africa are around 45 percent, and it is

Mitigating (continued from pg. 1)

Cleaner water, less water Speaking of waterways, according to the World Bank, 17 to 20 percent of industrial water pollution is due to textile dyeing and treatment. In addition, the production of fabric consumes a huge quantity of fresh water. The manufacture of one T-shirt, for example, uses about 700 gallons of water. The 90 million pounds of clothing Planet Aid collects helps save about 130 billion gallons of clean water each year—over 15 times the amount of bottled water Americans drink in one year.

even lower for women, who are often married or become pregnant at a young age. Staying in school allows Africa’s youth to not only gain a better education, but also helps prevent early marriage and child rearing, which provides the youth (especially women) with the opportunity to pull themselves, and their country, out of poverty.

But, even before students have the opportunity to go to secondary school, they must have a good educational foundation on which to build their knowledge. This foundation begins in primary school and is key to keeping students motivated throughout their education and ensuring they are properly equipped to succeed.

While good nutrition is essential in the early grades, more is necessary to make sure that the human capital investment yields a maximum return.

Planet Aid’s Food for Knowledge (FFK) program takes a comprehensive approach to address the complex and interrelated challenges of malnutrition and educational advancement.

FFK does this through multiple components that reinforce the impact of the lunches on learning, including a bilingual early grade reading program, teacher training, student and community nutrition education, school gardens, and infrastructure development.

Learn more at planetaid.org/ffk.

Landfill space An obvious, though often forgotten benefit of Planet Aid’s textile collection is that over half a million cubic yards of open space is spared each year by 90 million fewer pounds of waste being dumped in a landfill.

Reducing municipalities’ burden Cities, towns, and counties also reap rewards as a result of Planet Aid’s work.

By not having to collect and dispose of an extra 90 million pounds of municipal waste in unwanted clothing, Planet Aid saves municipalities (and in turn, taxpayers) millions of dollars in associated costs.

Why Recycle with Planet Aid? Planet Aid is one of the largest locally operated nonprofit textile reuse and recycling organizations in the United States, helping to keep about 90 million pounds of unwanted clothing and shoes from entering landfills each year. By donating your clothing to Planet Aid rather than throwing it away, you help to reduce the environmental impacts associated with textile disposal and clothing manufacture. However, it’s not just a green decision. Your donation benefits people by creating jobs and by providing clothing and development support to the less fortunate around the globe.

Planet Aid Post, page 8

Working Together for the Global Community

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Planet Aid Headquarters: 6730 Santa Barbara Court, Elkridge, MD 21075 410-796-1510 Planet Aid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that recycles used textiles. It is registered with the U.S. Agency for International Development as a private voluntary organization.

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To find the location of a nearby bin, or to inquire about how you can get involved, contact your local Planet Aid office at planetaid.org.

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