Repair, Resell, Recycle: Your Sustainable Wardrobe Guide
Sustainability in the fashion industry has seen significant changes in recent years, but the focus has largely been on the production and consumption of sustainable fashion items like an organic cotton T-shirt. But brands are also starting to offer circularity services such as repair, recycle, and resell to hopefully encourage consumers to find new ways to implement sustainable practices, which don’t require the purchase of new garments.
Throughout the next few weeks The Carbon Closet will run a blog series diving into each of these three circularity initiatives: Repair, Recycle, and Resell. Last week we covered everything about repair. And in this week’s blog the spotlight will shine on recycling – breaking down all the nitty gritty details to allow you to recycle like a pro.
First, we’d like to give a little background on the current state of textile waste, to provide some insight as to why consumers engaging in recycling services is such a crucial piece of the puzzle, and hopefully, also show just how easy it is to opt for recycling rather than binning your old garments.
Discarded clothes are one of the largest sources of textile waste most of which ends up either in landfill or incineration. According to a case study by ACT UK nearly 49% of all discarded textiles in the UK are disposed of in household waste bins, which similarly ends up in landfill or is destined for incineration; indicating that there is a lack of consumer awareness towards the environmental impact of clothes recycling and the different ways to dispose of garments properly.
Additionally, a study highlights that by increasing textile-to-textile recycling rates in the EU to 10% could achieve carbon savings of 440,000 tonnes per year while also conserving 8.8 billion cubic metres of water! Now these numbers might seem a bit overwhelming, but the carbon savings are the equivalent to taking 95,000 cars off the road per year and enough water to fill 3.5 million Olympic-sized pools! Quite daunting, right?
So while it might seem like the convenient option to bin that pair of jeans with the broken zipper or the thought “what difference does it make whether I recycle or not?” pops into you head – it does make a difference, and we’d like to make it as easy as possible for you to recycle your next garments.
We’ve compiled a list below of brands, which are also available on The Carbon Closet, that offer recycling services.
Brand Recycling Services
Patagonia – The Worn Wearprogramme accepts clothing that is in good condition in exchange for credit towards your next Patagonia purchase.
The North Face – Take Back bins are available in-store in exchange for 10% of your next purchase, find one in your nearest The North Face store!
Nudie jeans – Offers a variety of take-back services that either recycle or restore & resell the jeans. 33 of their stores offer free repair services!
And if that’s not the convenient option for you, we’ve also compiled a list of charities and recycling services that you can use to recycle your next garments.
Charity & Recycling Services
Local council textile bins – find yours on your local council’s website
At The Carbon Closet, we believe that sustainability isn’t just about what you buy — it’s about what you do with what you already own. Join our community of conscious consumers choosing to repair, recycle, and resell their clothes instead of sending them to landfill. Together, we can reshape fashion into a more responsible, circular system where nothing goes to waste. Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with all our recommended ethical tips and visit our website for more sustainable products and blogs.