Right as all the tariff talk was heating up, a small textile shredder was clearing customs en route from China to my shed.

There’s a lot (a LOT) of textile waste.
“Landfills received 11.3 million tons of MSW textiles in 2018. “
It makes up about 8% of the waste in municipal landfills. A lot of it is clothing that people wore once or twice and threw away. There’s more in our homes – towels, sheets, etc.
There are businesses that turn fabric into shred (they call it shoddy) – but they don’t usually pickup old clothes from people, or sell the shoddy to individual consumers.
Generally it’s a business to business thing – a shredding company will buy material in bulk and resell it to another businesses that makes insulation, uses it as padding in cars, whatever.

I think there’s an untapped market for selling shredded textiles to individuals.

I learned about those whole deal after working for a textile collector – businesses that put those “donate clothes and shoes” bins out in parking lots and recycling centers and pickup donated clothing.

When I found out small home-sized textile shredders were a thing, I jumped on the chance!

Shredded fabric does two things:
*Keeps textile waste in local circulation, giving it one more life before the landfill
*Offers an alternative to plastic-laden polyester stuffing

Email makingsomethingwitheverything@gmail.com for a sample.