Clothes recycling collection and organisation
March 27, 2025Putting together a clothes recycling collection. New Year, New You! And new clothes, too. To make space in your wardrobe, you are probably having a good look at what you’ve worn over this last year, and what you are likely never to wear again.
Ring in the New Year with Less, not More!
Collect tons of textiles including clean and dry unwanted clothing in good condition. Textile waste can even be in not so good condition, as you can use it for wiping rags at home or even recycling composting. Discarded clothing and textile like tea towels, towels and bed linen are really appreciated by thrift stores and clothing donations and clothing shoe can go to textile recycling via clothing collections or subside textile banks. Charities will collect textiles and also solid waste.
What Should be in a Clothes Recycling Collection?
The weather we’ve been having is not conducive to going out. It’s the perfect time for an early spring cleaning and sorting out, though. When your house, or at least your room, is clean, you can take all the clothes out of your wardrobe. Put them on the floor – it’s ok to do this because it’s clean! If you are worried about becoming overwhelmed and only managing to do one half of the task – the one where you pull everything out, but don’t put it back – do things in sections. For example, just empty your underwear drawer. Great. Now check all your underwear – has it got holes? Has it shrunk? Is it too small? That goes for socks, bras, knickers, underpants, whatever. Maybe you have things that never fitted in the first place or have a seam that goes up your bum. Or your sock elastic is too tight.
This kind of thing can become cleaning rags. Save them to spring clean the rest of your house. Be generous with yourself. Just get rid of them and buy new sets. It’s not really advisable to buy second hand underwear but treat yourself to a six-pack or organic cotton knickers, or socks made from recycled fibres. Vintage slips are nice as well.
Do a Little Repairing
Clothes recycling collection. If your socks are very special, hand knitted ones you can give yourself a different kind of treat. If they have holes in them these are the things you can treasure and repair. I love to darn them. I feel like darning is a small, manageable project and feel very proud to have saved these precious socks – which in my case my mum knits for my girlfriend – for another year. Usually I do this so well, in a neat grid. Sometimes, for some reason, I make a complete pig’s ear out of it (as my mum tells me) with jagged, uneven work. It doesn’t altogether matter because the sock is saved and I did it with love. Or at least, I hope it doesn’t matter. My girlfriend tells me so. Which is what counts.
And what about other things for the clothes recycling collection?
So now you have a very neat pile of underwear you want to keep. Honestly, get rid of the itchy sexy bra you bought in the sale right now – unless it genuinely is sexy and you only wear it for a few moments. Get rid of everything you don’t really like. There are some charities that collect unwanted bras and send them to other countries. I don’t know how you feel about that. Perhaps another woman is going to feel super fancy in your barely worn bra? Well, consider it anyway.
Fold up your underwear that you’re keeping – yes – even your knickers! If you want to be very ceremonial about it, you can iron them too. Now you will find they are not spilling out of your drawers and you can close the drawer. Bonus! If you cannot close the drawer at this point you need to go on a side quest. This is exactly the reason you didn’t pull all of the clothing you own in the world out on the floor but only a tiny, manageable section. Your side quest now consists of finding out why your drawer won’t close, even though you now only own a third of the underwear you used to.
Clothes recycling collection – More Repairs, Perhaps
Has the bottom dropped out of the drawer or is it bending? This is the most common answer. You can push it back in. If necessary add some wood glue to keep it in place. You may have to remove the drawer altogether to do this. Take the drawer out, glue the base in place, leave to dry. After a few hours, replace the drawer, patiently negotiating the frustrating runner system. Do not get impatient and put the drawer back too soon. You will risk glueing the drawer to the chest of drawers and will not be able to pull it out again. If you put your clothes back in the drawer before the glue is set, you risk gluing your knickers to the drawer. This is, I don’t need to explain, the opposite to the intended neat and tidy outcome. So, be patient.
The other problem might be that the runners just need a little help in running. A top trick for this is to rub a candle along them. The wax reduces friction. Or I just spray in a bit of WD40 lubricant. I use this for just about every household problem. It’s very handy. But don’t use too much, don’t let it dribble down or it will make a mess. Anyway, when it’s all sorted, put the drawer back in the chest of drawers, put the underwear back in the drawer, put the old underwear in a bag ready for your next cleaning adventure. Ta dah! You have done a new year thing! Your life is cleaner and more organised. Time for a rest. More clothes recycling collection next year!
