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How To Decide What Clothes To Recycle & Find A Drop-Off In Your Area
As it stands now, the vast majority of our clothes are worn only a few times before being tossed away. Each year more than 18,000 tons of textile waste heads to landfill...in the city of Phoenix, Arizona, alone. Zoom out to the rest of America, and closer to 14.4 million tons1 of textiles are trashed annually. So the fewer clothes we buy in the first place, the better. And for those times when we do have old garments to get rid of, the landfill should really be the last resort. First, look into the clothing recycling systems near you using this guide.
How to decide what to do with old clothes.
While it's certainly easier to throw that big ol' black bag of used clothes into the trash, separating your garments into four categories—resales, donations, recycling, and trash—will ensure that each one can achieve its highest reuse value. Here's how to think about what belongs in each one:
- Sell: If it still has a tag on it or is on-trend and in good shape, it's a good candidate to resell and get some money for. Send it into a secondhand clothes market online, or take it into a thrift shop near you.
- Donate: If it doesn't have resale potential, you can look into donating next. Donation clothes should still be in good shape and be things you can see other people wearing. Don't "wish donate" and put old and tattered things in this pile—they'll likely just end up in the landfill too, especially these days. "With COVID-19 there has been an influx of clothing donations, but donation bins and thrift stores are at full capacity and have little outlet for so much clothing," Maria Eisenberg, the founder and CEO of NYC-based textile waste recycling company Marimole, tells mbg.
- Recycle: If it's tattered, stained, and past the donating phase, it can be a candidate for recycling. There are a number of types of clothing recycling programs available (which we'll go over later), but some of them accept shoes, underwear, bags, and cloth accessories too.
- Landfill: "If clothing is wet or has mold, no recycling option exists," explains Eisenberg. When that's the case, landfill is your only option.
What happens to clothes when they get recycled?
Unlike curbside recycling programs that turn plastic bottles into new plastic bottles, aluminum cans into new aluminum cans, etc., old clothes hardly ever become clothes again. When clothes are broken down, their fibers get shorter, making them difficult to reassemble into a sturdy new piece. More often, they're "downcycled" into items of lesser value, such as insulation, rags, and mattress stuffing for their next (and likely last) life.
As it stands now, less than 1% of clothing material is kept in the fashion industry—and most of it is scraps from factories. To provide some context for this figure, Lauren B. Fay, founder and executive director of The New Fashion Initiative, says, "It's important to remember that these fast fashion brands overproduce continually, so recycling is really a bare minimum responsibility." As little as 0.1% of clothes are recycled or upcycled (turned into a piece of clothing of higher value) after being worn, according to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation report on the textile economy.
In order to get these true recycling numbers up, some fashion brands are working toward a completely circular model of designing clothes that can be broken down and reassembled. So far, this is relatively rare: For Days, Eileen Fisher, and MUD Jeans are some of the few companies attempting it at scale.
In the meantime, a growing number of brands are partnering with independent recycling companies to give customers the option of sending in their old clothes to be recycled (again, most often downcycled) for store credit. "Brands are in the best position to offer incentives to customers to recycle and have the framework to establish the logistics and marketplace to make sure items are recycled and not landfilled," Eisenberg explains of the value of these partnerships for recycling companies. For brands, they offer a way to express environmental values and attract more customers.
Some textile recycling centers also operate their own collection sites in most major cities across the U.S. Once they get their hands on this old stock, the recyclers decide how to best upcycle/recycle, downcycle, or trash it.
How do I find clothing recycler near me?
A quick Google search should tell you if there's a clothing recycler drop-off in your area and what they collect. They're usually located outside busy shopping centers, at weekly farmers markets, or in large apartment buildings. Search "textile recycling options in [your area]" to see if there's a drop-off station near you. If you don't want to go through the hassle of lugging your clothes, some recyclers also offer at-home pickup for a fee.
Here are some options for the most populated cities in the U.S.:
- NYC: Marimole, GrowNYC, and Wearable Collections
- LA: TexGreen
- Chicago: CTR
And here is a list of fashion companies that offer recycling. Keep in mind that some of these brands accept only their own clothes, while others will collect anything, so be sure to look into the details of their program first.
When you send in a bag of clothes to secondhand platform ThredUP, they'll also recycle anything they don't end up reselling.
If none of these options are available to you, you can also take recycling into your own hands. "You might be able to keep scraps around for sewing and mending projects, contact a school to see if they're collecting scraps for crafting projects, or ask your local animal shelter if they're accepting scraps for dog toys and insulation," fashion journalist Elizabeth L. Cline previously told mbg. "Just get creative and ask around."
The bottom line.
Recycling your old clothes is a way to give them at least one more life before they enter a landfill. To do so, you can either find a textile recycling drop-off center or go through a clothing store. While recycling is better than trashing, remember that it isn't a perfect solution since old clothes can't usually be turned into new clothes. Buying fewer pieces in the first place is ultimately the most sustainable fashion choice you can make.
