How To Recycle Old Clothes: 17 Textile & Clothing Recycling Options

While selling clothes online is becoming more popular, there are still many items that just don’t have any resale value and the fate of these is grim. Only 1% of clothing is currently recycled worldwide, while the vast majority ends up burning in incinerators—or burning our planet as it slowly degrades in landfills.

Fortunately, between nonprofit old clothes recycling programs and retailers with clothing recycling programs, it’s getting easier to lay old duds to rest responsibly.

And by recycling old clothes just one time, you can reduce its carbon footprint by a whopping 82%.

If you’re in doubt on how to recycle old clothes (or anything else), TerraCycle will come to your recycling rescue. From complex laboratory waste to coffee pods, you can recycle almost anything under the sun with this organization. Hard-to-recycle items are their forte, so recycling fabrics and clothing with them is a breeze.

To recycle used clothes with TerraCycle, get friends or family together and share the cost of a Fabrics & Textiles Zero Waste Box, in small, medium, and large sizes. They’ll send it to you, you load it up with items to recycle, and ship it back using the prepaid return label.

They take care of sorting the fibers and fabrics by type. Natural textiles are turned into “shoddy” (insulation) while synthetic fabrics become pellets and eventually new plastic products.

If you’re looking for recycle clothes for money, there’s nothing easier and more flexible than Trashie. Purchase a 50% post-consumer recycled plastic Take Back Bag for $20, fill it with any type of clothing, and earn $30 in TrashieCash™ to be exchanged for gift cards and rewards from a variety of popular brands such as Sephora, Pact, and Thrive Market.

The bags themselves get recycled and the clothes they contain are matched to the most suitable end-of-life option thanks to their innovative 253-tier grading system, whether it’s finding a new home for wearable items, recycling into new textiles, or repurposing into industrial rags, insulation, carpet padding, pet bed filling, and more.

Next time you search for “old clothes recycling near me” check out Freecycle instead. With grassroots groups scattered all around the world, Freecycle makes it easy to turn trash into treasure—either for straight reuse or to be upcycled into something totally new and unique. Anyone can both give and get used items completely free.

It’s free to post anything and local members will get notified of your listing. Sharing a picture helps, too. Just tell them where and when to pick up your old clothes and—voila—landfill averted.

You can fill Retold‘s bright yellow compostable cornstarch bags as full or minimally as you’d like with almost any kind of clean and dry textile—towels, sheets, odd socks, “even your old underpants”. Then just mail it back using the prepaid label included.

Depending on the condition, items will be distributed among thrift stores, charities, upcyclers, or on rare occasions, offshore recycling companies. Either way, they’re a #nolandfill company, not to mention a member of the No Issue Eco Packaging Alliance

You can either order one-time bags or join their subscription service and receive a bag quarterly via carbon offset shipping. The latter will earn you rewards (~$15 per bag).

You can recycle old clothes nearly any and everywhere thanks to Trash Nothing‘s impressive online network of 8 million people from around the globe who are giving and getting free things. Just post an item (with photos), choose a recipient, arrange a pick-up, and feel good about giving those old threads a new lease on life.

Helpsy is a for-profit Certified B Corp that specializes in recycling old clothes, footwear, linens, and accessories. With more than 1,800 collection containers, they’re the largest clothing collector in the Northeast US—with free options for both drop-off and home pickup. If you’re a business that wants to provide your community with an answer for where to recycle old clothes, you can get involved by Hosting a Bin for free on your property.

95% of what they collect is reused or recycled in some capacity. 20% is recycled into rags for industrial use, stuffing, or insulation.

For items you can’t donate to NYC thrift stores, think: Wearable Collections. This charitable clothing collector has been servicing the city for nearly two decades, keeping millions of garments out of landfills.

With collection hubs in commercial residential buildings, permanent neighborhood bins, clothing drives at schools and organizations, and a presence at 8 weekly Greenmarkets, they make textile recycling easy for New Yorkers. So easy, in fact, that you can pay $20 and schedule a Friday pickup from your home.

Partnering with two industry leaders, they maximize the reuse of every garment collected. The goal is to “maximize the collections of usable clothing”. For the ~50% that is not usable (AKA damaged or not wearable), they convert into rags or feedstock for new fiber products, successfully keeping 96% of collected textiles in use in some capacity.

Making use of the convenience Facebook provides, many are turning to Facebook groups as part of the Buy Nothing Project. Local community members can establish a group to allow people to give, lend, or receive items for free. You can either spread the word about old clothes you have or see a post of someone asking for old clothes for crafts, donations, etc.

Find one in your area by searching “Buy Nothing” and the name of your town or neighborhood. If nothing shows up, start one!

If you’re in the UK and wondering where to recycle old clothes near you, the charity Sharewear is your answer. They have various donation points in Nottingham and can accept postal donations, details about which can be found on their website.

They accept high-quality clothing and footwear of all sizes and for all genders. Items donated are put in the hands of the 14 million UK residents in need of free-of-charge clothing.

Unless buying all organic bras, this type of undergarment is notoriously difficult to recycle. Between the padding and underwire, they contain many unique materials.

The Bra Recycling Agency (B.R.A.) has found a way to keep brassieres out of landfills. They pulverize, magnetize, and carpet-ize, recycling the steel underwire and turning the rest into carpet padding. Bra-wearers can recycle one bra for free, or get a package that allows for the recycling of an unlimited number of bras, so gather your gal pals and motivate each other to get some clutter of your chests (literally!).

B.R.A. is a Women-owned Enterprise and they donate all proceeds from the metal recycling to breast cancer research.

You may know thredUp as one of the internet’s best second hand stores, but they’re also a responsible resource for clothes that don’t meet their new-closet-criteria. When you send your gently used clothes in (for free if you use your own parcel), you’ll receive a percentage of the sales price for items they accept.

Due to their high standards, however, about 60% of items aren’t accepted. Aware that charities are already burdened by too many of our discards, they work with a network of vetted recyclers to responsibly recycle the rest. “Vetted” means they adhere to the brand’s Aftermarket Partner Code of Conduct: transparency, integrity, respect for developing nations, and awareness of environmental impact.

Ultimately, thredUP does what they can to keep your old jeans, jackets, and tees out of landfills.

It’s hard for sustainable yoga clothes to (hand)stand the test of time. As much as you may try to stretch their lives, stretch fabrics eventually give out. Fortunately, Girlfriend Collective provides a way to recycle them.

With their Recycle. Reuse. ReGirlfriend. program, you buy the shipping label, send back clothes from any brand and get $5 store credit (or $10 per item if their GC brand). Not only will you have some spending money for your new sports bra or pair of leggings, but you can rest assured your old one will be recycled into something new.

Through a partnership with the textile recycling service Retold, the Boody Goodness Loop recycling program makes it easy for you to donate, upcycle, and recycle unwanted textiles.

All you have to do is select the size of the box and how many, fill it with your unwanted goods, pay for the shipping label, and drop it off at your local post office. Even though you have to buy the label, Boody then reimburses you the cost of the label with a store gift card. So if you buy a $35 10kg box, you can select $35 of their bamboo basics for free.

They accept nearly all clean and dry household textiles, from wedding dresses to those pesky left socks. All items are sorted into donate, recycle, and upcycle to ensure they find a good home.

Just by selecting the smallest 10kg box option, you’ll help prevent 40kg of GHGs.

Thanks to their Worn Wear program, Patagonia’s helps you turn Patagonia-brand sustainable outdoor clothing, backpacks, or other gear into cash. If it bears the Patagonia brand, they accept it—no ifs, ands, or buts.

If the items are higher-priced or in good condition (at least repairable), you’ll receive up to $100 in-store credit. For lower-priced items, payment tiers are based on the original selling price. For items no longer resellable or repairable, you can still send them to be responsibly recycled. You won’t get store credit, but you will know your old parka won’t end up in a landfill.

In fact, it’ll probably end up in another Patagonia piece, since they’re making the switch to exclusively recycled and renewable materials, and working out how to chemically or mechanically recycle products made of mixed fabrics.

If you’re ready to break up with your old intimates, Hanky Panky has a program for that. Their LingerieCycle is one of the best clothing recycling programs for unwanted bras, underwear, or socks from any brand.

They work with Green Tree Textiles, a non-profit committed to preventing your t-EX-tile material from entering landfills.

Some things just aren’t meant to be, but you can feel good about your old intimates finding new love in the form of industrial insulation. There are other fish in the sea, and $10 in Panky Points will help you find them.

Here to quell the idea that no one wants your old undies, Subset is setting the bar high for underwear recycling of any brandn, not just their own. The women’s, men’s, and kid’s bras, undies, socks, and tights are responsibly transformed into new things, like furniture batting, carpet padding, and insulation.

You’ll receive a $25 gift card you can use to shop for Subset brand organic underwear as thanks.

Pact answers the question of how to recycle old clothing with perhaps the simplest solution yet. Just send the clothes (of absolutely any brand) back in the very same box your new sustainable basics haul came in.

Not only does the packaging get a second use, but your clothes do, too. Their Give Back Box® program accepts clothing, shoes, accessories, and jewelry and distributes them to local nonprofits.