It may not be time for spring cleaning just yet—but as we near the end of the year, you likely have decluttering on the mind. After all, there’s something refreshing about wrapping up 2025 with an organized closet. Problem is: If you are getting rid of things, you probably need somewhere to offload your gently-used clothes. And while most of us wouldn’t dream of throwing them into the trash—after all, textiles take decades to degrade and can infuse toxic chemicals and microplastics into our water—it can sometimes be hard to know exactly where to send your unwanted clothes.
Donation is often the best option, but not all clothing donation programs are created equal. Sadly, many of the items that are donated in the US, Canada, and the UK, never even make it onto the racks of the local charity shop. “It’s important for people to know that it’s the reuse of secondhand clothes that drives the clothing recycling world, yet that typically only makes up around 50% of the donation,” explains Adam Baruchowitz, founder and CEO of Wearable Collections, a clothing recycling company based in New York City. (Find them at your local Greenmarket.) “What an organization does with the other 50% is increasingly important.” According to the EPA, much of it ends up in landfills or is sent via trade agreements to the (already overwhelmed) second-hand markets of Africa, Asia, and South America, where if it isn’t sold, it is either incinerated, put into landfills, or left in waste piles.
“The textile waste crisis has reached an alarming scale, with 92 million tons of textile waste hitting landfill each year—the equivalent of one full trash truck each second,” says Chloe Songer, CEO and Co-Founder of textile recycling platform SuperCircle. “Once in landfill, textile waste takes 80 to 1,000 years to break down, releasing harmful toxins and greenhouse gasses, polluting waterways and soil systems, and contributing to warming.”
The etiquette of donating clothes
Obviously, it’s crucial to consider where your donated clothing is going before you throw it in a donation bin. But for unwanted clothing to have the best chance of a second life, it’s important to understand—and follow—some crucial clothing donation rules. For starters, don’t include garbage in your clothing donation bags; this makes it difficult and pricey for donation centers to sort. Second, don’t donate stained or damaged clothing. Third, be sure to sort your items by type. And, lastly, make sure the donation center actually accepts what you are giving away. Items that are stained, worn out, or damaged—and thus not suitable for donation—should be recycled; some municipalities offer textile recycling, while other nationwide recycling services like SuperCircle partner with fashion brands like Reformation to reprocess textiles.
Ultimately, the systems currently in place for donating unwanted clothing are not ideal; it’s hard to know where the best place to donate clothes is because there isn’t a ton of transparency about where your old clothes will really end up. A closet clean out is a good time to assess your relationship with the clothes you have and reconsider just how much you actually need going forward.
The best places to donate clothes
Goodwill is a nonprofit organization that is entirely donation based. It’s also one of the most commonly recognized charity organizations that accepts clothing donations. In-person drop-off locations around the United States accept everything from clothing and accessories to homegoods. When you donate your clothes to Goodwill, the company sorts it and puts it up for sale in its stores and online. Goodwill says that 90 cents of every dollar goes toward local programs and services for people in need.
