Is California trashy?
In the United States, 85 percent of all clothing ends up in the trash, according to reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Californians alone sent nearly 1.2 million tons of textiles into landfills in 2021, per CalRecycle—the equivalent of 3 percent of the state’s total landfilled waste.
It’s one of the reasons Gavin Newsom signed the Responsible Textile Recovery Act into law in September 2024. California’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill set in motion a producer-funded program built around repair, reuse and recycling—starting with near-term milestones in 2026, including the state’s selection of a single producer responsibility organization (PRO) and producer enrollment requirements.
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But despite the statute’s now-solidified status, much of the landmark environmental ruling remains to be sorted. Especially since local municipal codes are the biggest barrier to scaling collection capacity, according to USAgain.
The Golden State is at a critical juncture in textile waste management, with the implementation of SB 707 catalyzing a circular economy. The Chicago-based textile recycling company’s latest report estimated that Californians spend around $99 million per year simply to landfill textiles that could be better spent elsewhere.
“Reuse should always come first,” said Mattias Wallander, CEO of USAgain, who commissioned the report. “Keeping clothing in use delivers the biggest environmental benefit because it preserves the water, energy, dyes and materials already used in textile production.”
Reuse is the fastest lever, per the report, as diverting textiles could support more than 10,000 additional jobs in California; every 10,000 tons of reused textiles supports about 85 jobs.
For example, according to the report diverting 10 percent of textiles to reuse could support about 1,000 green jobs, while 24 percent could create 2,500. At that higher diversion rate, the report estimated that up to 1.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide could be avoided by keeping clothing in circulation rather than landfilling it—an emissions hit USAgain compared to nearly five gas-fired industrial plants.
“SB 707 is a real opportunity for California to lead, but success depends on making it simple for people to do the right thing with their unwanted clothing through convenient, community-based collection,” Wallander said. “And, because international reuse markets help keep textiles circulating for longer, we also need a system that supports responsible end markets and transparency.”
The study was published in collaboration with Cascadia Consulting Group—a Seattle-based firm that works with organizations on zero-waste strategies and planning—to spotlight the state’s chance to “cement its role as the nation’s leader on environmental policy by supporting textile reuse.”
The report used France’s EPR system as a proxy to estimate California’s potential. If the state could copy the country’s schema, even a 10 percent diversion rate shortly after implementation could keep 118,000 tons of textiles out of landfills in a single year. But if California can reach a 24 percent diversion rate—on par with France’s Refashion performance—in the long term, it could recover more than 284,000 tons of textiles annually, per the report.
“California has a strong foundation to build on,” said Julie Cerenzia, director at Cascadia Consulting Group. “The biggest win will be designing a system that works in the real world; an important part of that system is convenient access to collection points.”
But the report’s real warning was infrastructure.
Convenience, per the paper, will determine whether SB 707 becomes a model (or a mandate) that can’t be implemented.
“In the California Textile Collectors Survey, nine of the 15 respondents report collecting textiles through collection bins, exclusively or in combination with other collection infrastructure,” the report reads. “Research conducted by Cascadia and Leigh Stowell & Co. in King County, Washington in 2013 found that collection bins were the second most common method for consumers to pass along an unwanted textile, after thrift stores, and that bins had the potential to increase access to textile collection options.”
Which means that, while donation bins are one of the cheaper collection tools to scale, local rules may unintentionally choke off the collection network that the law depends on, especially as collection volumes rise. And that means in order to meet the SB 707 mandate for free-and-convenient standards, the Gold Rush State will need to add around 1,500 more collection sites. While the state’s current collectors operate over 2,113 collection points, they are heavily clustered near hubs like San Francisco and Los Angeles—leaving rural counties, like those in northern and east-central California, with subpar access.
But bigger cities aren’t without burdens. Places like Los Angeles and Oakland have high permit fees and strict zoning that often confines cans to industrial areas. Approved textile collection sites in the City of Angels, for instance, are subject to a $457 annual inspection fee per bin; the city of Oakland charges a $1,141 permit application fee and a $434.85 annual renewal fee. Wholesalers surveyed stated that removing these regulatory barriers alone could increase their collection volumes by 50 percent to 300 percent.
“Each community in California has an opportunity to support this access for its residents, including through early engagement and updated regulations,” Cerenzia said. “With the right implementation, SB 707 can become a landmark circular economy success.”
