Be Sustainable This CNY By Recycling Your Old Clothes to Give Them New Life

If you’re celebrating Chinese New Year, you’re probably well underway in preparing for the festivities which are less than a week away. Aside from ensuring the home looks tidy and neat with new furniture, the wardrobe is likely to undergo a bit of a clean-up too, as you toss out the old to make way for the new.

As we contemplate throwing our unwanted clothing into the bin, it might be a good time to consider a sustainable way of spring cleaning where you choose instead to give them a new lease of life through recycling your old clothes.

Besides being able to make way for more new clothes, you will also be doing your part for the environment and though it might sound like a bit of a hassle, it is good to know that finding a place to recycle them in Singapore is not that difficult. Here’s a look at five locations where you can recycle clothes that serve as alternatives to donating them!

1. Cloop

If you’ve seen those textile recycling bins around your neighbourhood, then you might be a little familiar with Cloop. In an effort to reduce fashion overconsumption and waste, Cloop aims to keep apparel circulated within the community through the Cloop Cycle which collects good, clean, and wearable pre-loved clothing and curates them where they are assessed, restored, and sorted into various categories for circulation through swaps and resales. The idea is to remind the community to make fashion clean and conscious again.

In partnership with Malaysian-based textile recycler, Life Line Clothing, textiles collected from the bins are transported to a facility run by Life Line Clothing and sorted by hand into about 500 categories for the three main purposes — reuse, upcycling, and recycling. This means that they are either put up for sale in Malaysia’s second-hand market, sent overseas for reuse and resale, or upcycled into raw materials for household items.

Currently, Cloops has around 60 textile recycling bins around the island where you can recycle your clothes. To find a Cloop textile recycling bin near you, click here.

2. Greensquare

Aspiring to make a positive impact, Greensquare targets to double the percentage of recycled textiles from 7% to 14% by 2030 to help conserve natural resources and reduce environmental pollution by providing free textile recycling services to households and organisations in Singapore. The collected clothing is then sorted into different categories and either sold to second-hand textile importers in various developing countries to be reused, or repurposed into industrial cleaning cloths.

Currently, Greensquare has around 16 drop-off locations for you to recycle your clothes. To find a Greensquare drop-off location near you, click here.

3. H&M

Started in 2013, H&M’s Garment Collecting programme has become the world’s biggest of its kind. In spite of being a fashion brand, H&M has not only introduced new ways to extend the lifetime of their products and materials, but they have also advocated recirculating textiles through repair, reuse and remake before recycling.

To make sure they make the most of the resources and energy, H&M will take your preloved clothes and recirculate them according to their condition — Rewear, sold as second-hand clothes for garments that can be worn again; Repurposed, where old clothes and textiles are turned into other products such as cleaning cloths; and Recycle, where clothing that can’t be resold or reused are turned into textile fibres for use in new textile products.

You can find the drop-off boxes for garment collection at all H&M stores islandwide. To find an H&M store near you, click here.

4. UNIQLO

Aimed at giving unwanted clothing new life, RE.UNIQLO is the Japanese brand’s approach that focuses on recycling, reusing and reducing clothing waste. With this initiative, pre-worn UNIQLO items are recycled and made into new products, reducing the amount of waste, carbon dioxide emissions and resource consumption that are common throughout product life cycles.

Preloved UNIQLO clothes are collected from stores and sorted into clothes that can be reused or recycled. Garments classified for reuse are then sorted into detailed categories to be sent to people in need while garments classified for recycling are broken down by unique technology into textile fibres or alternative fuel to reduce CO2 emissions.

You can drop off your used UNIQLO clothing at any UNIQLO store by approaching the staff at the cashier counter or dropping them off in a UNIQLO recycle box. To find a UNIQLO store near you, click here.

5. Refash

In an effort to build a more sustainable future for fashion and to extend the lifespan of clothes, Refash invites you to recycle your preloved clothing and get paid in cash or credits. All you have to do is pack your old clothes into a bag and drop them off at any Refash store where they will be evaluated. After which, accepted items will be paid in cash or credits from $0.50 and unaccepted items will either be returned or responsibly recycled.

You can drop off your preloved clothing at Refash stores islandwide. To find a Refash store near you, click here.