What to do with Old Clothes: Unwanted Clothing

What to do with Old Clothes

It is so gratifying to finally complete a full closet detox! Need help with your closet detox? Follow this step-by-step guide. Having a clutter free closet is a great feeling. But when you have decluttered your closet, you are often left with a bunch of unwanted clothing. What do you do with this? There are a few basic options here: Donate, Sell, or Recycle. The three basic options for what to do with old clothes.

This year, I am on a journey to be more mindful of my wardrobe. This stemmed from researching sustainable fashion. An aspect of sustainable fashion is ensuring that clothing does not end up in landfills. It is estimated that more 80% of clothing does. Clothing can take hundreds of years to decompose. Overall, it’s just bad for the environment to throw clothing in the garbage. Today, I want to share some alternatives. These alternatives will keep your clothing out of landfills and also extend the life of the garments.

Affiliate links may be used in this post. To learn more, please review our full disclosure statement below (on mobile) or to the right (on desktop). Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks for your support! 

Donate Unwanted Clothing

Thrift stores, homeless shelters, women’s shelters, and local churches are great resources for donating unwanted clothes. A quick internet search will usually turn up a few good donation centers for you.

Sell Your Clothes

Local consignment & resale shops are great, quick options to get money back for your gently used items. I have had a lot of luck with buying and selling at a nearby resale shop. They often offer nearly new, name brand, clothing at great prices.

If you want to sell online try these sites:

• Poshmark: Creating a closet for selling unwanted clothes is super easy with Poshmark. I love that you earn money from selling unwanted clothing and then you shop from other Poshers! The money you make can either be spent on Poshmark, or you can receive the funds for personal use. Poshmark is more of a social resale platform, which is great because you can connect with Poshers who have similar style to you! By following closets, you know first when new listings become available.
• thredUP: Order a Clean Out Kit from ThredUp to recycle, and possibly make money on your old clothes! The best part? ThredUp prepares the clothing and lists it for sale. All you do is order a kit, send them your clothes in the kit, and wait for a sale! Earnings can be converted to site credit or cash. This is great because you do not need to coordinate shipping of items you sell.
• Tradesy: With every sale you make, Tradesy prepares packaging (including printing the shipping labels) for you! They do charge fees for this, depending on the dollar amount of your sale. Definitely a good option if you don’t want to deal with packaging.

Recycle

This came up when researching sustainable fashion. I honestly am so impressed with some of these recycling programs! The best part is that some of these brands will give you cash back for unwanted clothes and that cash (or store credit) can be used to shop sustainable clothes. You can feel good about recycling and also feel good about buying sustainably!

For Days: Take Back Bag

They take clothes in any condition, from any designer. No undergarments, please! All you do is purchase a bag (medium $10, large $20), fill the bag with unwanted clothes, and send the bag back! You will earn store credit, based on the bag size, to spend on their site! Read more about For Days HERE.

**I ordered a large bag and was able to select a charity to donate to at no additional cost to me! I thought this was an AMAZING way to give back on top of recycling.

thredUP

If you do not wish to sell items on thredUP, you can donate a flat amount (determined by thredUP) in exchange for each Clean Out Kit you use to get rid of unwanted clothing.

Give Back Box

All you have to do is save any old shipping box, print a FREE prepaid label, and ship your unwanted items! They will ensure a local charity in need receives your items.

They are partnered with several organizations that you can choose to donate to via a paid shipping label. Visit their site for full details.