52 Weeks of Impact

Note:  Though 52 Weeks of Impact doesn’t begin for another nine days, we decided to report in on our December 26th:

After a wonderful Christmas, opening gifts, relaxing and eating beyond our stomach’s content, the last thing Nils and I wanted to do today was expend energy. We certainly didn’t want to go out in the cold. But, the weather was uncooperative — it was exceptionally sunny, even balmy for late December. And to make matters “worse,” the hard work had already been done, we had sorted and bagged everything earlier in the week. We were looking at minimal effort. We still eyed each other reluctantly. There’s a perfect phrase in German to describe our state of being this morning: we were both taken over by our “Innerem Schweinehund” (Direct translation: our “inner pig-dog”, closest translation of meaning:  our “inner couch potato”). In the end, we hefted our heavier-as-a-result-of-Christmas-meal backsides off the sofa, grabbed up the bags, and headed out the door and onto the street.

For those unfamiliar, December 26th is Boxing Day in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Commonwealth of Nations and Hong Kong, amongst others. It has been appropriately termed “Day of Goodwill” in South Africa and the tradition is to give donations to charities and to the needy.

Where we live, Humana “People to People” clothing drop-off points are fairly easy to find and never very far. Through Humana, our used clothing and shoes will either be resold to raise funds for projects in developing countries or be given directly for relief aid to those in need. Organizations like the Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, Purple Heart Foundation, and Oxfam, amongst many others, do similar type collections.

Donation of clothing is something that has a long tradition in both our families, so when we returned home this afternoon, and I did a bit of research, we were shocked to discover some statistics:

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in the United States, where used clothes donations is fairly well-developed, only 15% of clothes is collected and recycled (Europe statistics are approximately the same). When you consider that the average American consumes 70 pounds of textiles per year, that means 60 pounds per person of textiles go to landfill — per year. Nils did the math and assuming these stats are correct, we’re talking about more than 8 million tons of textiles per year in the U.S. alone. That is just scary!  So, our brief journey outdoors suddenly took on greater significance. We double-dipped and got to directly aid those in need, and reduce our carbon footprint.

Actually, we triple-dipped: to avoid having to take a separate trip, we took along our paper, glass and plastic recycling for deposit as well.