A second example related by an industry member demonstrates how arbitrary manipulation of markets can be wasteful. These used white sheets, typically in great demand as polishing cloths, have a much higher value than the pre-consumer material they replaced. California's requirements forced the manufacturer to waste a valuable post-consumer material that could have readily been sold. At the same time this requirement prevented the cheaper pre-consumer material from being used, and it was ultimately dumped into a landfill. Any textile waste, whether new or old, that is not recycled goes into some landfill.
All recycling needs to be encouraged.
It is important to note that new and secondhand clothing differ markedly in their respective sources, purposes, and markets. As stated previously, the textile recycling industry is undertaking efforts to encourage the recovery of an additional one million tons of post-consumer textile waste. The focus of this recovery effort is directed at the municipalities that are currently dumping this valuable material into landfills. If the majority of this work is not regarded as recycling, it may prove very difficult to enlist the efforts of these municipalities to recover this textile waste, no matter how financially beneficial. The central two questions of definition that have been brought to your attention are of critical importance both to the continued operation of a unique industry as it now exists and in determining its future ability to reduce further the amount of waste being deposited in our nation's landfills.