Reusing Clothes: How Donating Helps the Planet
Reusing clothes and recycling clothes sound alike, but they are not the same thing, and the difference is the reason we exist. Reusing means someone wears it again, just as it is. Recycling means breaking it down into fibre or rags. Both beat the bin, but reuse saves far more.
The waste hierarchy
Reuse first, recycling second
UK waste law ranks the ways of dealing with waste in order, from best to worst:
Prevent it
Buy less and make things last.
Reuse it
Pass it on so it gets used again as it is. This is what donating your clothes does.
Recycle it
Turn the material into something new.
Recover it
Burn it to make energy.
Dispose of it
Landfill, the last resort.
A reused coat is still a whole coat. Recycling it would turn it into shorter, weaker fibres, and very little of that ever becomes new clothing: less than 1% of the material used to make clothes is recycled into new clothes (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017).
What it saves
What reusing clothes saves
Making new clothes uses water, energy and raw materials, and every piece worn again means one less needs to be made. Research by WRAP found that keeping clothes in use for just nine months longer cuts their carbon, water and waste footprints by around 20–30% each (WRAP, Valuing Our Clothes, 2012).
Our own estimate, for every kilo of clothing worn again rather than replaced:
Work out your own with the green calculator
These are estimates, taken from the low end of published ranges on purpose, so they understate rather than overstate. A typical collection of two full bags weighs around 15 kg; if it’s all clothing, that is an estimated 45 kg of CO2e and 37,500 litres of water saved by passing it on rather than replacing it.
When reuse isn’t possible
When recycling is the right answer
Some clothes really are finished: worn through, torn or stained beyond saving. Those should be recycled, not binned. Council textile banks and household recycling centres send them on to be made into things like insulation, padding and industrial cleaning cloths.
The few pieces in our collections that turn out to be too worn to wear go the same way: they become wiping cloths for garages, workshops and factories. See where the rest goes on what happens to my clothes.
So which should you do?
- Clean and wearable? Donate it. Book a free charity clothes collection.
- Worn out? Recycle it at a council textile bank or recycling centre.
- Not sure? Check what clothes can I donate?
The one thing never to do is bin them. Why that matters is on why old clothes shouldn’t go in the bin.
Every day
Other ways to keep clothes in use
- Buy second-hand, from charity shops, markets or online.
- Repair before you replace: a new zip or a stitched seam can add years.
- Wash at lower temperatures and air-dry where you can.
- Swap with friends and family, especially children’s clothes.
Sources
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation, A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future (2017).
- WRAP, Valuing Our Clothes: the true cost of how we design, use and dispose of clothing in the UK (2012).
- Our per-kilo estimates are the conservative factors we use across our site for clothing kept in use rather than replaced.
Ready to donate your clothes?
It’s free, you don’t need to be at home, and you choose the charity your donation supports.