I Donate Goods… Impacting local economies!
Many people recognize the environmental benefits of recycling. Far fewer are aware that recycling has become an economic success story as well.
The purpose of recycling is to turn waste into valuable raw materials to be used in the creation of new or reusable products. Recycling creates jobs and introduces the opportunity for our manufacturing industries to gain a global competitive advantage with a reduction of costs for materials.
Textile recycling provides a considerable contribution to the U.S. economy.
According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2001, the recycling and reuse industry is comprised of more than 56 thousand businesses and organizations.Together they are responsible for the employment of 1.1 million people. Their employees have earned $37 billion in taxable salaries. They have paid sales taxes on $236 billion in sales annually.
The study also shows that the recycling and reuse industry is also partly responsible for an additional 1.4 million jobs. These additional jobs comprise a payroll of nearly $52 billion in taxable salaries and about $173 billion in taxable income.
It does not stop there, it was also found that the spending by employees of the recycling and reuse industry leads to another 1.5 million job positions with an annual taxable salary of $41 billion and annual taxable income of $146 billion. $12.9 billion in tax dollars have been paid by the recycling and reuse industry to local, state and federal governments.
Textile recycling creates much-needed economic benefits; some of which include:
- Local revenue generation thru exportation.
- Creation of job opportunities for people of varying skill and responsibility levels.
- Payment of salaries
- Payment of taxes
- Creates a need for the purchasing of goods and services from other local businesses.
- Creates an effective method of reducing both production and disposal costs.