In the old days we had rag and bone men, who took your old clothes and recycled them. We don’t see them around any more, but there are still businesses specialising in reclaiming textiles, many of them supplied by the charity sector.

More information about textile recycling can be found at Waste Online

In landfill, synthetic textiles don’t decompose, whereas woollen garments do, but produce the greenhouse gas methane.

Oxfam and other charity shops will take good quality clothing.

Cut up old t-shirts and use them as cloths around the house.

Many recycling sites have a clothes and shoes collection facility.

Clothes that go into textile banks end up like this:

• 70% re-used as clothes in the UK and abroad
• 9% reclaimed and used as filling material, after shredding
• 8% is used to make reclaimed fibres
• 7% is used to make cloths
• 6% is waste - mainly unusable parts such as zips