Publication Date: 04/03/2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wheaton, IL — In March 2014 the Wheaton Park District was awarded a Certificate of Sustainability from Use It Again (USAgain), an organization focused on recycling and conservation. Specifically, this award recognizes the efforts the Wheaton Park District has made to recycle clothing and textiles with USAgain.

USAgain is a for-profit company that collects unwanted textiles and resells them in the United States and abroad. Instead of throwing away unwanted clothes, consumers drop them off in the bin. Textiles are then diverted from landfills to be reworn, reused, or recycled. One million pounds of clothing per week are collected, which is then purchased by wholesale buyers, thrift store chains, and textile recyclers.

By recycling 16,239 pounds of textiles in 2013, the Wheaton Park District made the following environmental impacts: saved enough water to supply 155 homes for a year, prevented carbon emissions equivalent to a car driving 138,519 miles, and avoided 93 cubic yards of landfill waste.

These efforts have been led by the Wheaton Park District’s “Green Team,” a group of dedicated and innovative employees. Terra Johnson, who co-chairs the Green Team with Megan Raitt, says, “We formed the Green Team—a wide variety of employees who represent the park district as a whole—in 2007 with the goal of educating employees on environmental practices at home and at work. It’s our hope that this way of thinking and these practices trickle out into the community.”

In addition to textile recycling, the Wheaton Park District provides paper recycling at the Community Center, which in 2013, saved 13.56 tons of paper from going to landfill.

Lastly, the Wheaton Park District partners with Shoebox Recycling to keep shoes out of landfills and repurpose shoes that others want to throw away. Sneakers that end up in landfills take 200 years to even start breaking down, and while statistics like this can seem daunting, this shoe recycling effort is an easy and tangible way for DuPage residents to go green.

All three of these recycling programs are available at the Wheaton Community Center, 1777 Blanchard Street, Wheaton. For more information on green initiatives at the Wheaton Park District, visit wheatonparkdistrict.com/general/green/team.