TL;DR: Only about 14.7% of US textiles get recycled and most of that is downcycled into insulation or rags, but real take-back programs like Madewell's denim trade-up and H&M's garment collecting offer discounts for handing in worn-out clothing.
Most old clothes don't get recycled, no matter which bin they end up in. According to the EPA, the US generated 17 million tons of textile waste in 2018, and the overall recycling rate across all textiles was just 14.7 percent, with 2.5 million tons actually recycled. For clothing and footwear specifically, the recycling rate was even lower at 13 percent. The remaining 11.3 million tons went to landfills, accounting for 7.7 percent of everything landfilled in the US that year, and another 3.2 million tons were burned.
Part of the confusion is that "recycling" a garment rarely means it becomes a new shirt. Almost all textile recycling is downcycling: shredding fabric into insulation, industrial wiping rags, or carpet padding rather than spinning it back into new clothing fiber. That's still meaningfully better than landfill, but it explains why take-back programs exist as their own category, separate from donation and resale.
Take-Back Programs That Actually Exist
| Program | What They Accept | What You Get | What Happens to It |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madewell Denim Trade-Up (Blue Jeans Go Green) | Any brand or condition of jeans | $20 off new full-price Madewell jeans | Gently worn pairs are resold via Madewell Forever; unusable pairs are shredded into insulation through Cotton Inc.'s Blue Jeans Go Green program. Madewell has collected over 2.4 million pieces to date. |
| H&M Garment Collecting | Any brand, any condition, any textile | 15% off your next H&M purchase (US) | Sorted and processed through H&M's partner I:CO into reuse, downcycled materials, or fiber recovery depending on condition. |
Repair and Resale Come Before Recycling
Recycling is the last stop, not the first one, on the waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, repair, then recycle. A garment that's still wearable is worth more, both to the planet and often to your wallet, kept in circulation as-is than shredded into insulation. Mending a ripped seam or a lost button keeps a garment out of the recycling stream entirely, and it's often cheaper than replacing the item outright. If a piece has more life left in it but you don't want it anymore, reselling it keeps it as clothing rather than downcycled material.
Before you drop a bag of clothes into any take-back bin, it's worth sorting for what's actually still wearable. Repair cafés can fix items with small damage for less than the cost of new, and platforms compared in this ThredUp vs Poshmark vs Depop breakdown can resell anything still in decent shape. Save take-back and recycling programs for what's genuinely past that point: stained, torn beyond repair, or too worn to sell.
How to Actually Prepare Clothes for a Take-Back Program
- Items don't need to be wearable, unlike thrift donation. Take-back programs are built to accept torn, stained, or worn-out textiles for material recovery.
- Clean and dry items before dropping them off; damp or dirty fabric can be rejected or contaminate a batch.
- Separate what's still wearable (donate or resell) from what's genuinely worn out (take-back bin), since mixing the two wastes the better options for the wearable pieces.
What About Textile Donation Bins in Parking Lots?
Standalone clothing donation bins, often run by companies like USAgain, collect textiles for resale or recycling and are a legitimate option in many areas. Because some bins have been set up by bad actors with no real recycling operation behind them, check that the bin displays a registered company or nonprofit name and a way to verify it before dropping off a bag, rather than assuming every roadside bin is legitimate.
Understanding the actual material in what you're wearing also matters here, since fiber blends affect what a garment can be downcycled into. This organic cotton vs recycled polyester comparison and the practical guide to reading a clothing care label both help make sense of what's actually in a garment before it reaches the end of its life.
The Bottom Line
Less than 15 percent of textiles in the US actually get recycled, and most of what does is downcycled rather than turned back into new fabric. Repair and resell whatever is still wearable, and save brand take-back programs like Madewell's denim trade-up or H&M's garment collecting for the pieces that are genuinely done.
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