Clothing should never be placed in your household recycling bin, but why load up a landfill with old clothes? Give them away or find ways to reuse them.

From sport coats that don’t fit anymore to old sheets, blankets, and towels, an estimated 85% of textiles currently get thrown away in landfills. All that fabric takes up a lotta precious space in the ground (just like it did in your closets). There’s a smarter way to go, and you can help.

Put your old clothes and other fabrics to better use. Simply donating old cloth can make a huge dent. Especially since most donation locations will hand off materials they can’t use to salvage companies to recycle for cleaning rags or to be shredded for fiber products like insulation. In fact, only about 7% of donated textiles eventually end up in a landfill.

Clothing, sheets, towels, curtains, and other textiles

Clothing can be donated as long as it is clean, dry, and odorless. Some donation locations may take ripped or stained textiles for recycling. Call ahead for details. Find out where you can drop off and donate textiles.