You're currently on:
Recycle Your Used Clothing
How to Recycle your Used Clothes – We’ll Take Back Organic Clothing Purchased from Fashion and Earth!
Beyond wear and tear, there are plenty of reasons you can start to amass a pile of used clothes you don’t wear anymore. New fashions come in style, you lose (or gain!) weight, and stains make their way onto the front of your favorite shirts... Not to mention when your kids are growing and they need new sizes every couple months!
As a green fashion retailer, we carry a responsibility to help our customers recycle their used organic clothing to reduce the amount of textiles ending up in the trash. As it stands, textile waste makes up for as much as 5% of landfill volume. According to the EPA, approximately 11.8 million tons of textile waste was produced in 2006 in the US alone. Approximately 85% of the total textile waste generated each and every year goes to landfills, despite the fact that nearly 90% of this waste can be recycled!
Recycling your used clothing can be easier than you think. We’ll even take back the organic clothing you purchase from Fashion and Earth to handle recycling for you! Below are some other ideas to get you started with creative ways to recycle your used clothing.
Ways to recycle your used clothing
You may have several options for recycling your used clothing depending on its condition.
1. Pass it on
If your used clothes are still in good condition, why not offer them to someone else? You might be tired of that yellow sweater, but maybe it would work perfectly with your friend’s wardrobe!
Some people have formed groups with friends in order to swap used clothes. This also gives you a chance to gain some new additions while recycling the used clothes you don’t need anymore. Find out more about organized events from ClothingSwap.org or form your own local clothing swap group.
2. Sell it
Selling your used clothing is a great option if you’re simply tired of your clothing or it doesn’t fit you well anymore. Used clothing stores and consignment shops will often pay you for your used clothing and they take care of finding the new owners. Some people also get good results saving up their used clothing for a garage sale and then donating any that aren’t sold.
Let us know of a good consignment shop in your area!
3. Donate it
Donating your used clothing can significantly benefit others. Consider that over 600,000 homeless families (many of them war veterans) and 28 million children living in low-income families as well as women escaping abusive households often turn to charities for their clothing needs.
Donations of used clothing are welcome at a variety of charities across the continent. You can often just drop off your clothing in a bag or box, unlike consignment shops, which are a little more picky about the condition in which your clothes arrive. In addition, some organizations will pick up used clothing from your home.
Do make sure your clothing donations are clean, undamaged, and reasonably wrinkle-free. Avoid hangers. For clothing items that come in pairs (shoes, gloves, socks) make sure they are kept together (shoe laces can be tied together, gloves and socks can be stuffed inside each other). Pockets should be emptied and any belts should be securely fastened to their appropriate items.
Salvation Army
Just Give
Goodwill
Value Village
March of Dimes
Vietnam Veterans of America
Planet Aid
Wardrobe for Opportunity
Dress for Success
American Red Cross
Value Village
Breast Cancer Support Services
Gifts in Kind International
Women’s Alliance
Soles4Souls
Recommend another charity that accepts used clothing
Give away or trade clothing and other items:
A great benefit of donating your used clothing is a potential tax deduction. Keep a list of the clothing you donate, and some donation centers will give you a tax receipt. If you mail your clothing or shoe donation to a charity, also send a self-addressed, stamped envelope so they can send you a receipt. Keep in mind that shipping costs are tax deductible as well.
Coming soon – look for our interactive map to help you find a used clothing charity near you.
4. Repurpose it
Stains and wear and tear can make your used clothing unsuitable for others – but you can still find uses for it, often replacing items you might buy anyway. Here are a few ideas:
- Save used clothing for dirty-work projects like painting and gardening.
- Cut into manageable pieces and uses as rags.
- Use unstained fabric pieces in sewing and craft projects.
- Take items to a seamstress to resize or transform (for instance, that dress can have a new life as a skirt!)
5. If recycling your used clothing purchased from FashionandEarth.com is not an option for you, we can help you recycle any clothing you bought from us, no matter its condition. Just ship your organic clothing purchased from FashionandEarth.com back to us, and we’ll take care of recycling for you. Send to:
Fashion & Earth
1475 Peters Rd.
Emyvale, PE
Canada C0A 1Y0
Contact us for more information
Buy high-quality organic clothes made to last
Before it even comes time to consider recycling your used clothing, why not think about how long a clothing item is going to last when you buy it?
FashionandEarth.com sells only well-made organic clothes that are designed to last a long time. Organic clothing doesn’t have to be fragile. Durability and other factors like fit are determined by the quality of both the fabric and the manufacturing process. You’ll find that cheaply made organic clothing such as that available at mass merchants doesn’t last as long or wear as well as the high-quality eco-chic fashions from FashionandEarth.com. In fact, unlike many green fashion retailers whose clothing may only partially address environmental factors, the organic clothing we sell is manufactured in an eco-friendly process from start to finish, leaving the smallest mark on the environment possible.
Together we can help make throwing away used clothing a zero option!
