What to Do With Old Clothes: 7 Responsible Options

The urge to bag the lot and be done with it? Completely understandable. But here's the thing: the bin is the worst place for unwanted clothes.

Most of what ends up in household waste could've had a whole second life after yours. One where it's worn, loved, and appreciated (maybe even more than you appreciated it, no offence).

So before you go full Marie Kondo, here are seven things you can do instead, from quick and easy to fun and creative. Because why settle for decluttering when you can do something good with your old stuff?

1. Send them back through one of our takeback programmes

This is by far the simplest option, and the one that takes the least mental effort on your part.

A lot of our favourite brands, like Sweaty Betty, Nobody's Child and Finisterre, Marks & Spencer and TALA run takeback programmes, where we power their infrastructure.

You can browse all of our brands on our website and pick the ones you’ve got in your clearout pile. Send them all to us, and we’ll send you vouchers to spend on something new from the brands.

How it works:

You send in your pre-loved pieces.

Our team will check their condition, clean them up and list them for resale, donation or recycling.

Nothing ever goes to landfill, and your discount voucher means your clear-out will fund your next purchase, so you can replace anything worn out with something you’ll wear all the time.

If none of the brands we’re partnered with fit the bill, you can also send them through the Reskinned takeback programme, where we accept any clothes, from any brand at all, and you’ll get a Reskinned voucher to say thank you, so you can find a new favourite outfit, totally pre-loved.

2. Resell them

Good condition pieces have real, actual value on the pre-loved market, and the platforms to sell them on have never been better. EBay, Vinted, Depop: pick your marketplace, list your stuff, and wait for the offers to roll in.

For brands not covered by a takeback programme, this is a solid way to claw back some of what you spent and put it towards something you'll use more. Your old gym leggings will transform like magic into next month's grocery budget, and stay in circulation for a little bit longer.

For anything that doesn't sell, or just isn't worth the faff of listing, feel free to send it our way. Pack up and post whatever you're not sure what to do with and we'll figure it out: resell, donate or recycle, depending on what condition it's in.

3. Repair what's broken, and alter what doesn't fit

A missing button, a broken zip, a hem that's called it quits. These are all fixable problems, not binnable offenses.

Most towns have a local tailor or alteration shop that handles this stuff quickly and without eye-watering prices. We recommend building a pile of everything that needs attention and taking it in at once. Some shops will knock money off a bigger job, and it saves you going back twice for fittings.

Seriously, a good alteration can completely change your relationship with something in your wardrobe. That dress that never quite sat right will quickly become the fits-like-a-glove favourite. Those jeans that scuff under your shoes and always get muddy can suddenly become the pair that everyone asks about, and you can leave everyone wondering how you managed to get highstreet trousers to look so expensive.

If you'd rather learn yourself, repair cafes and community sewing groups run all over the UK, and they’re great fun. They're relaxed, social, and run by people who genuinely love this stuff, the kind who'll have you reattaching buttons with confidence inside an hour. Plus, they often come with coffee and cake, if you needed another incentive.

Some brands run their own events too. We team up with Finisterre, Nobody's Child and other brands regularly to host workshops where you bring something old and leave with it feeling brand new.

And if you’re more of a stay-at-home type, we don’t blame you. There's a YouTube tutorial for everything. Seriously, everything. Our team of repairers have been hard at work creating tutorials for you over on our youtube channel, and there’s no better place to start.

And fixing something with your own hands carries a certain kind of satisfaction that buying something new never will.

Infinitely cheaper than replacing something, much better for your wardrobe long-term, and well worth an hour with a needle and thread in front of the telly.

Did you know: Reskinned has an in-house repair team. Anything you send us that needs attention gets fixed before it goes back out into the world.

4. Upcycle or rework them

Your old clothes can transform into something new.

That faded denim jacket you wore all through your twenties is crying out for customisation. The oversized shirt would work so much better as a dress. That pile of band tees you can't bring yourself to chuck? You’re looking at your very own memory quilt. The ones you like even less can be cut into strips and spun into 100% cotton yarn for knitting.

You don't need to sew. Loads of workshops and tutorials don't require it. Paint, dye, scissors and iron-on patches will get you a lot further than you'd think.

Our personal starting point: a box of washing machine dye in a colour you'll wear. A few quid, an afternoon, and something you've written off suddenly feels worth keeping again. Plus there’s no mess (we don’t understand how that works either).

For inspiration, sustainable designers like Lydia Bolton are worth following. Full of ideas you can actually try yourself (and you’ll actually want to).

5. Donate - but make sure you do it right.

Donating to the local charity shop is most people's default, and it's not a bad instinct. But it's worth knowing how it works before you drop off a bag.

Charity shops have strict quality standards. Worn, damaged or heavily pilled pieces often don't make it onto the rails, they go into rag bins instead, which can actually end up costing the charity money to deal with. You've offloaded the problem, but it hasn't gone away.

Be honest with yourself before you donate. If you wouldn't buy it secondhand, they probably can't sell it either.

For clothes that are decent but not quite sellable, community clothing banks, refugee support organisations and local mutual aid groups are often a better fit than a high street shop.

Reskinned partners with Give Your Best, a social enterprise that gets clothes to refugees and people experiencing poverty across the UK. Pieces that come through our warehouse and can't be resold, but are still in good shape, go straight to them. Nothing disappears into the void.

Find out more about Give Your Best

6. Swap with friends or at a clothing swap

Clothing swaps are exactly what they sound like. You bring what you never wear any more, you leave with something someone else brought. No money changes hands, your old stuff stays in use, and you come home with things you can't believe someone was ready to let go of. Seriously, we’ll never get over how much treasure we all deem to be old rubbish no one wants.

Clothes swaps happen all over the UK, at community centres, libraries, and independent shops. Have a search in your area and check your local notice boards, and you’re likely to find something going on. More pop up every time we look, our team are particularly fond of Loanhood, which host some of the best in the biz.

You can also just do it with a group of friends.

Grab a bottle of wine, everyone brings a bag, and see what you go home with in the end. Just make sure you invite that one friend who always dresses well, so you can raid her get-rid pile.

This technique works especially well if you have kids. Children's clothes have an almost comically short lifespan: worn for one season, sometimes less, and then they're done.

Rather than bagging them up for a charity shop (many won't take kids' clothes because the resale value is too low), pass them directly to a parent whose child is six months younger than yours. They will be delighted, you’ll free up an entire drawer for the next phase. Win-win.

7. Recycle the rest

Some clothes have had it. The knickers that have seen better days, the jeans worn to nothing between the thighs, we understand the instinct to bin them. But please, not the general waste bin.

Textile recycling points sit outside most supermarkets. Most of our councils collect textiles kerbside or at household waste sites. Through Reskinned, anything that can't be resold or donated goes to specialist recyclers and gets turned into new fibre, insulation or industrial materials. See, there’s no excuse!

The fabrics our clothes are made from take enormous amounts of water, labour and natural resources to produce. Keeping old textiles in circulation, even the truly worn out ones, means less pressure to make new material from scratch. It might seem like a small thing, but it really does add up.

Check your nearest textile recycling point, or send everything to us and we'll handle the sorting.

How to clear out old clothes the right way

Seven options there, and zero of them are your household bin. There’s no excuse! (Yes, even those old socks with holes in).

Send us your pieces via takeback, list them on a resale site, or use them as an excuse to learn a new skill - hello, sashiko patching.

There are so many ways to do better, and care more for our clothes and our planet.

The Reskinned takeback programme is open now, so when it’s time for your next clear out, send your old clothes, get rewards, and know exactly where everything ends up.

Ready to clear out the right way? Start your takeback here.