Here’s the Victoria’s secret that your garbage man hasn’t been telling
you: your underwear is 100 percent recyclable! While he may not want
your old undies, there are plenty of people (or, at least, recycling and
donation organizations) who do. And, the Environmental Protection
Agency wishes you would hand them over. According to the agency’s
estimates, 80 percent of unwanted textiles wind up in landfills, and
each of us tosses 37 pounds of clothing per year. So the next time you
think about tossing those holey drawers in the trash, toss them in your
washing machine with some organic detergent instead, and then choose one
of the methods below to recycle them.
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Donate
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© Photograph by sirastock/shutterstock |
Goodwill or Salvation Army
stores will take—CLEAN!—underwear and bras in pretty much any condition.
If they aren’t in good enough condition to resell, the nonprofit sells
them to rag houses that shred the material and use it in various
applications, such as furniture or automobile stuffing, or for
industrial cleaning rags. Goodwill uses the money from the sale to fund
its job-training programs.
Keep in mind, many charity
organizations are also on the lookout for donations of new, unused
underwear, which are often some of their most needed items. You can
donate new children's underwear to kids' nonprofits Underwearness and The Undies Project.