What do you do with old clothes? I have been asked this question at least 20 times this year. The short answer is to take them to Goodwill, Oxfam, Out of the Closet, or The Salvation Army. However, there are many more ways to recycle and reuse old textiles whether they are practically new or threadbare and torn. So here are my top ten suggestions on how to help reduce the millions of pounds of old clothes and textiles that end up in our landfills each year:
1) Turn old clothes, towels, sheets etc. into rags. This is by far the most obvious suggestion and perhaps the easiest. Turning old clothes into rags is doubly beneficial because it can negate the use of paper towels. Save a tree use a rag.
2) Take old towels and linens to animal shelters. Shelters use old fabrics for bedding as well as cleaning material. A threadbare towel can make a comfortable bed for a rescued kitten. Contact your local animal shelter ahead of time to see what kinds of items they are accepting.
3) Learn how to quilt using scraps of old clothes or have old garments made into a quilt by an artisan. Quilts are wonderful duel purpose items as they are beautiful keepsakes as well as warm bed coverings. My mother has a gorgeous quilt made out of some of her dresses she wore as a little girl. You can also use quilting techniques to make throw pillows and reusable grocery bags
4) Swap-O-Rama-Rama! These swap meets started by visionary Wendy Tremayne are ingenious. How does it work? Bring a bag of clothes you no longer want to the Swap-O-Rama-Rama meeting. Add your clothes to the community pile then search through it to find new items you would like. You can take as many items as you would like it's all free. Then attend a workshop at the meet or find one of the available artists who are on hand to help you modify the clothing you found. At Swap-O-Rama-Rama a dress can become a skirt, pants can become shorts and everyone leaves happy with new custom fitted wardrobe items.
5) Hand me downs. If "hand me down" stirs up bad childhood memories of ugly clothes then call it by the more socially hip phrase "vintage." Those baby clothes your tot grew out of in a month are now tiny vintage ensembles for the new baby down the block. You might as well offer a family or individual your gently worn clothes or your children's gently worn clothes. If they don't want them then number 6.
6) Take clothes, worn out or not, to Goodwill, The Salvation Army, or U'SAgain. Yes, I mentioned this in the first paragraph, but did you know that these organizations in particular recycle the clothes they can't use (like old underwear - ick). The textiles that cannot be used by these groups are passed on to "rag sorters" who turn the items into cleaning cloth or break them down into reusable fibers. The fibers can be used again to make a variety of products including sound insulation.
7) Some brands recycle their used clothing. Nike and Patagonia have large recycling campaigns in which they collect their old clothes and use the resulting recycled material in new items. Many times collection boxes are located at their stores or you can mail the item to the company. If you bought an item from Levis, Express, the French Connection or one of the other hundreds of apparel brands in the world and they don't recycle their own clothes then right now might be a good time for you to call or email them and encourage them to do so.
8) Do you know a child under the age of 11? If so you can create a lovely "dress up box" for them to play with by filling a box with old clothes and perhaps some old bed sheets. The weirder the item the better: gold lame dresses, huge petticoats, old uniforms, huge jackets with shoulder pads are all perfect. I had one of these "dress up boxes" at my grandparent's house when I was growing up and it was my favorite plaything. I had hours of fun parading around in my own gorgeous creations. My grandparents even let me wear my own ball gown fashioned out of a sheet and petticoat to the market.
9) Toys! Make toys from old clothes. Clean old socks, find some fabric glue, cut up pieces of useless fabric and yarn and you have all the materials you need to make a sock puppet. Sit children down in front of a box of puppet supplies and watch them assemble an entire cast of characters. Cats love pouches made of old fabric or old stockings stuffed with scraps of cloth and catnip. Rats and other rodent pets enjoy snuggling in hammocks made from old tube socks with the toes cut out. The possibilities are endless so use your imagination.
10) Goonj - By far my favorite idea on this list. The organization Goonj in India reminds us that clean clothing means survival and too few people in the world have access to cloth. Goonj's innovative programs include clothing the poor, recycling fibers, Work for Clothes, Not Just a Piece of Cloth and many others. The Not Just a Piece of Cloth program bravely addresses a health issue that is taboo in many cultures - clean sanitation napkins for women. Goonj makes sanitation napkins out of clean recycled cloth for women who cannot afford them. In poor communities women get terribly ill and even die because their sanitation needs are not met. Goonj's model of efficiency and compassion should be duplicated over and over again. Click here to watch an inspiring video about Goonj.
More cool stuff on Celsias:
The Fabric of Progress: Why Organic Clothing Matters
On the Hunt for Eco-Denim That Doesn't Make My Butt Look Big
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