Textile Recycling Guide
Getting rid of old clothes, fabrics, and furnishings from your business should be done sustainably. Using dedicated textile waste bins helps keep them separate from other materials and ensures as much as possible is recycled and recovered. It’s important to recycle textiles to preserve resources and energy and avoid adding to landfills.
There’s often confusion around textile recycling though as there are various types of fabrics and materials. Recycling, recovering, or reusing most textiles is possible with effective waste management. Find out how to dispose of textiles responsibly from your business with these answers to common questions.
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Contents
How to dispose of clothes and textiles
To dispose of clothes and textiles from your business you can arrange collection by a licenced waste carrier, such as with Business Waste. Store your waste textiles in appropriate bins on your premises and authorised carriers will collect and transport them to a materials recovery facility (MRF) or recycling centre that specialises in fabric recycling.
Where possible, make sure any clothes and textiles you dispose of are clean and dry. This helps remove any potential contaminants and ensures the fibres are in as good a condition as possible for recycling. It also reduces the chance of contaminants interfering with recycling machinery and causing a problem.
Another way to dispose of clothes and textiles is to offer them for reuse. As long as they’re in good enough condition, donating to a charity should ensure they’re reused. This could mean being sold in a charity shop or given to people in need. When donating to charity as a business, ensure you fill in the appropriate paperwork and follow any relevant guidelines and regulations.
What happens to recycled
clothes and textiles?
What happens to recycled clothes and textiles depends on how you get rid of them. Any deemed wearable that you donate to charities should be resold or passed on to those in need. Those thrown in a textile bank may be resold as they are to foreign countries for their used clothes markets, while some will be redistributed.
Clothes and textiles disposed of by your business via waste collection should go to an MRF or recycling centre. Here they’ll be sorted, cleaned, and recycled. The process depends on the specific material but often involves shredding or pulling apart the fibres and spinning them to create new yarn and fabrics.
These are then sent to manufacturers who use the materials to create fresh clothing, furnishings, and other textile products. Eventually, the products should ned up on shop shelves and for sale online. This is when you see items advertised as being made from recycled clothes.
Why is textile waste a problem?
Textile waste is a huge problem as when it’s not recycled or reused it often ends up in landfill. It can take more than 200 years to decompose. During this time it can contribute to greenhouse gases and chemicals from the dyes may leach into surrounding soil and water, causing pollution.
For businesses, you’ll have to pay extra landfill tax for sending more waste fabrics to landfill too. Plus, producing new textiles requires a lot more water and materials compared to making them from recycled fabrics. This is less environmentally friendly and costlier for all involved. Recycling textiles avoids contributing to landfill, saves water and costs your business less.
There’s currently no penalty for sending fabric to landfill. In June 2019, the UK government rejected a proposal to ban textiles from landfill entirely. While councils introduced some fabric recycling points, they’re not as common as recycling points for other waste such as plastic and cardboard. Instead, government efforts focus on encouraging reuse and recycling.
Can you recycle shoes?
Recycling shoes is just as important as other items of clothing. Unfortunately, less than 5% of old shoes are recycled or reused in the world. Even worn-out old shoes can be recycled though. Businesses create all sorts of shoe waste due to used corporate workwear like boots for construction workers to old trainers at sports clubs.
Shoe recycling is challenging as they can contain a mix of materials including leather, rubber, plastic polymers, foam, and metals. These must be separated where possible to maintain the purity and quality of the materials for reuse. Depending on the specific materials the shoes contain they may be recycled with other clothing items.
Most shoes are recycled by shredding and mechanical processing. Rubber, foam, and textiles are all shredded and the materials are often used to create running track and sports court underlay and playground surfaces. Metal parts are removed before shredding, which can then be sorted, shredded, and melted to create new metal products.
You can recycle shoes from your organisation anywhere in the UK with Business Waste. Contact us today for a free quote and more information about recycling shoes of any type, size, and condition from your company. We can provide free bins and one of our experts will advise on the best solution to recycle old shoes based on your needs.
What happens to fabric
waste that is not recycled?
Nearly every type of fabric is recyclable, but some kinds aren’t reusable. Fabric that isn’t recycled will end up in landfill. Textiles and clothes in landfill are a real problem as they sit there and slowly decompose. This can take decades, particularly for artificial fabrics. In other cases, fabric waste that’s not recycled may be incinerated.
Cotton and thread take a few months to decompose, while synthetics like polyester can take hundreds of years. For this reason, it’s important to ensure whoever disposes of your commercial fabric waste – whether it’s you, your local council, or a private company – focuses on recycling whatever they possibly can.
Is cotton recyclable?
Cotton can be recycled alongside other textiles and fabrics. Recycling one tonne of cotton can save 765,000 litres of water. However, producing recycled cotton is limited, as the quality can be lower than creating clothing and garments from new cotton. Therefore, it’s often blended with new cotton to form fresh products.
Cotton can be recycled in two ways:
- Pre-consumer recycled cotton– waste cotton is processed to create new fibres.
- Post-consumer recycled cotton – existing cotton is broken down and repurposed to form new fibres.
What do I do with old towels?
You can recycle old towels alongside other types of waste textiles, fabrics, and clothing as they’re generally made from similar fibres. It’s important you ensure they’re clean and dry to avoid introducing any contaminants. Otherwise, throw them into a textile bin and they’ll be processed and recycled in the same way as other textiles.
With old paper towels, these normally go in with general waste. This is because they’re made from fibres that are too small to be of use when recycling. Used paper towels may be wet and contaminated so can’t usually go in with your dry mixed recycling.
Can you recycle polyester?
Yes, you can recycle polyester, but it follows a slightly different process than recycling other fabrics. You can recycle polyester clothing and items in a textile or clothing recycling bin as normal. They’ll be sorted and separated from other fabrics at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and then be recycled in one of two ways:
- Mechanical recycling – the plastics in polyester are melted down to create new yarn, which can only happen a few times as fibres lose their quality.
- Chemical recycling – this breaks down the plastic molecules and forms them into new yarn for use in creating fresh products.
Can you put clothes in
the recycling bin?
In the UK you should not put clothes in your recycling bin at home. They may not be recycled and end up in landfill if you do. Instead, you can recycle old clothes by donating them to a charity shop or taking them to a household waste recycling centre near you that has specific bins and facilities in place to recycle clothes and textiles.
If you run a business, arrange delivery of clothes recycling bins to your premises to easily sort, store, and dispose of old and damaged clothes in an eco-friendly way.
Can I recycle damaged clothes?
You can recycle damaged clothes for any items that you can’t donate or repair. You may be able to give them to an animal shelter to use as bedding or other charities might accept them to transform into things like face masks, cleaning cloths, and padding for chairs.
Recycling damaged clothes that are beyond repair or reuse is also possible though. Throw such items away with other bits of waste fabric and textiles in your clothing recycling bins and they’ll be transported to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for sorting and processing. Often they’ll be shredded and cleaned to create new fabrics.
Get a fast and free quote
Get a fast FREE quote for textile waste collection
- Free quote within 1 hr
- Any type of textile waste
- FREE bins and delivery
- We cover all of the UK
Published 26th March 2025 by Graham Matthews.