How can I recycle clothing that is too thrashed to be worn again?
What can I do with the ones that are stained and torn? I use some for rags. I once heard of someone using it as insulation. Does anyone have info on someone or place that could find a use for old clothes?
Hi! If the clothing is 100% cotton, it’s COMPOSTABLE! I’ve been reading all about composting on instructables.com and we’re making our own composter today! I’ve been saving the legs from cutoff jeans (cut up like crude confetti) and even dryer lint to use as some of the dry matter in our compost. Polyester and rayon clothing won’t work for composting – it has to be natural fibers. If you don’t compost, find someone who does. We’re also looking for offices that want to get rid of shredded paperwork because our household produces way more vegetable and fruit matter scraps than dry papery matter and there has to be a balance when composting.
Another thing that I did with thrashed clothing is to make it into cloth diapers. The "new" cloth diapers are really awesome and have removable inserts that are just basically lots of layers of cloth sewn in a rectangle, and these inserts are then inserted into the crotch area of the cloth diaper between the outer waterproof layer and the inner cushy layer that touches baby. This worked brilliantly for our last 2 children and I felt great about finding a 2nd life for our thrashed clothes and sewing scraps that would otherwise be discarded. Non-natural fabrics can be used in cloth diapering – in fact, polar fleece was very helpful.
Good luck and thanks for thinking green!
Is it just me, or is anyone else having a hard time answering questions. Yahoo answers need to fix this.
use them for old rags…if you design clothes than make um ento wearables again,,,use them as a rope tosave someones life with give em to goodwill,
honestly, if u use ur clothes so much that they get ripped up and are horrible, i’d just use them as rags. from now on, u should stop using them so much and give them to the homeless before that happens. don’t insult them with ripped clothes.
shirts can be used as rags
make a quilt out of it >_< !
Salvation army sometimes have clothes banks in car parks that accept clothes that are in bad condition and re use them for things like blankets and stuffing. so keep an eye out for those.
or make a pathwork quilt. you can use the nicest bit of the clothes on the outside, and the not so nice bits for the stuffing. Or if you have children you could make a rag doll. and again use the nice bits for the outside, and other bits for the stuffing.
I love to knit. You could give the fabric to someone you know who knits. Or keep it for yourself. The old clothing could be used to make yarn with. All you have to do is cut up the clothing into thin strips (about 1-3 cm wide) and as long as possible. The strips can be tied together. It would be great to make balls of the yarn each in the same color. Or you can experiment and make yarn from multicolored clothing strips to make new colors. Also, if you like geometry, you can figure out how to cut the material into one full strip. This prevents you from having to tie the strips at the end into a knot, which could be unsightly, but passable.