I grew up in unincorporated Fresno, California (that is the part of Fresno, that Fresno does not want.) There were not a lot of extracurricular activities that were of interest to me, so I participated in 4-H and learned how to sew. I hated it.
I should reframe; the sewing was cool, but we were tasked with making a garment that we had to wear for judging. At the time I was in a growth spurt so I had to add panels to the dress I was making so it would fit. My dress ended up having a “Little House on the Prairie” patchiness and I did not win any prizes. That disappointment aside, I did learn a valuable skill: I can sew. To this day, I can fix my clothes and my partner’s. I convert worn items into cleaning rags. I am good at patching things (thank you growth spurt). We do not throw away very many textiles.
If you are looking for a resident club or event that is unique, instead of a cooking class, offer sewing or garment repair.
In the US, 11.3 million tons of textile waste ends up in landfills each year, which equates to about 81.5 pounds per person per year. This is not a waste stream that commercial properties typically have to contend with, but multifamily does. If you have an apartment community with two hundred units and an average of 2.5 occupants per unit, that means that your site produces 40,750 pounds of discarded clothes annually that go into your dumpsters. To convert that textile weight to yards (because dumpsters are sized in cubic yards, not pounds), that means that 181 yards of your waste annually is from people throwing away textiles. With the average cost per cubic yard of waste in the United States clocking in at $22, you are spending $4,000 annually on disposing of clothes that are no longer going to be worn.
I understand that I am not cool. Although I would eagerly attend a sewing and garment repair class, I know that it might not be attractive to your resident demographic. You can still reduce your textile waste by other means. Have quarterly free swap meets for residents where they can bring out clothes and housewares they no longer need to trade with other residents. Hold it on a weekend with a planned Salvation Army run or pick up scheduled for that Monday. If you have room, you could work with a company that does textile recycling to add their containers to your trash enclosures.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “With little strokes, fell great oaks.” I think he might have been talking about darning socks.
