So. I just moved out of my old place, which means a chance to clean up my closet of jeans and shirts that I’ve been wearing basically since freshman year of college. But, being an environment-friendly, tree-hugging, I-love-nature-and-dancing-around-naked-in-it kind of hippie, I feel an enormous amount of guilt throwing clothes away in the black dumpster bin. They are also definitely not worth donating because they look more like torn up rags than clothes, as my mom and sister would be more than glad to let you know.
Fact: Once a homeless person took pity on me and invited me to a free meal at the local church. Yeah, I went. I was hungry!
Anyway, what to do with old torn up clothes? I did an online search to no avail. All millions of searches tell you to do something cutesy or artsy or some other fancy shitsy, and with my great artistic talents I can barely draw a straight line. No hope there.
Then, Huff Post came to the rescue basically saying that if your ineptitude doesn’t allow you to do any of the above simple recycling art stuff …
“…instead of throwing it into the dumpster, there are a few companies out there that will recycle their product once you are done wearing it. Some of these items get turned into new clothing while some of them will get turned into playground equipment.”
But, of course, they won’t make it easy on you by actually telling you any of the company names. Another search led me to a great website The Good Human, which says that some companies like Patagonia, Nike, and UNIQLO take back their clothes free-of-charge to recycle them. That sounds great! But, what if I don’t own any of their clothes, which I don’t, then?
Well, recycle.net lists places that are looking for clothes to take from you. You may even make a few bucks! Aha, and here is just a little nugget of fact, also from The Good Human, that they don’t tell you at Salvation Army or Goodwill.
Non-profits like Goodwill and the Salvation Army play a crucial role in keeping old clothes out of the waste stream. When they get donations of clothes that are too threadbare to re-sell in one of their shops, they send them to “rag sorters” that specialize in recycling pieces of fabric large and small. Says Hawley, these textile recyclers sell about half the clothing they get back overseas in developing countries, while unusable garments, especially cotton t-shirts, are turned into wiping and polishing clothes used by a variety of industries and sold to consumers. She adds that other textiles are shredded into fibers used to make new products, such as sound-deadening materials for the automotive industry, archival-quality paper, blankets and even plastic fencing.
My guess is that Salvation Army and Goodwill won’t actually take your rags but what if you mix them in with some of your good clothes? Hmm, well you didn’t hear from me… 
