McPherson Elementary Wins $200 Cash Prize for Recycling Textiles |

Thu January 19, 2017

McPherson students collected 3,837 pounds.Original story on Napa Valley Register

USAgain announced that McPherson Elementary School in Napa won first place in its America Recycles Day Challenge. America Recycles Day Challenge is USAgain’s annual textile recycling competition that encourages students to collect clothes and shoes for rewear, reuse and recycling.

McPherson students collected 3,837 pounds.

Across California, 161 schools participated in the challenge and together collected 107,189 pounds of textiles, which helped prevent over 1.6 million pounds of carbon emissions.

USAgain CEO Mattias Wallander said 11 million tons of unwanted clothing in the U.S. is thrown into the trash and buried in landfills each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The 15 percent of clothing that does get a second life is equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road for a year in terms of reduced greenhouse gases, he said.