Rag recycling?

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of old clothes that I want to get rid of. However, these are clothes that... have seen a lot of use... They've got holes, and stains, and some of them are aged under-shirts...

The point is that I can't really give them to anywhere that would be trying to sell them or give them to people to wear. However, I don't want to throw them out. I'm sure that there are places I can give these that either turn them into rags, or paper, or whatever... Anyone have any leads?

Thanks.

Comments

[blinkidybah.livejournal.com]

ASPCA?

[eustaciavye.livejournal.com]

I second this, or any animal shelter/animal hospital. They need cheap blankets and bedding because scared animals ruin blankets by the truckload.

[richips.livejournal.com]

i've always wondered about this myself...

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that most of what is donated to Goodwill ends up being sold for rags anyway.

[ser-pez.livejournal.com]

you could always list them on freecycle...it's a website (well, a yahoo group) where people post things they are giving away and they recieve replies from people who have a use for the items. pretty much anything and everything has been listed on freecycle, from old appliances to craft supplies to random stuff. i've personally gotten rid of a lot of hanging file folders on freecycle. in order to do it, just go to freecycle.org and find the boston area group.

[ron_newman]

Freecycle Somerville
Freecycle Cambridge
Freecycle Arlington -- for some reason, Freecycle.org doesn't know about this one
Freecycle Medford

[turil.livejournal.com]

I believe that the Arlington folks broke away from the official Freecycle organization because they were kind of difficult with their random rules and such.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Cambridge has clothing recycling for unusable items, but I believe you have to be a resident (or know one who can claim its theirs....)

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I've never been asked for proof of residency at the Cambridge Recycling Center.

http://www.cambridgema.gov/theworks/departments/recycle/Dropoff.html implies that Cambridge wants usable clothing that they'll give to nonprofits. I don't know what they do with unusable stuff.

Cambridge recycling center - rags/clothing

[2ndchancesinc.livejournal.com]

The clothing donation box at the recycling center belongs to Second Chances, and all textiles are welcome (except those that have been soaked in chemicals like turpentine). We are a nonprofit that provides free clothing to folks receiving services through several Cambridge and Somerville nonprofits, and what cannot be used is either sold (mostly wholesale) to support our operations, or further recycled (car mats, futon stuffing, etc.). We also have a donation box in Somerville (Assembly Square) and in Watertown (Grove Street). More details and directions are on our website: www.secondchances.org .

[turil.livejournal.com]

I believe that the Garment District deals in rags, though I don't know if they take donations of them (being that they are a for profit company). It might be worth it to give them a call.

[jodi.livejournal.com]

mattdm and turil have a good idea if the animal shelters and freecycle don't get the job done.
all thrift stores (goodwill, garment district, savers, etc) deal in rags as a side business to some degree. when clothes don't sell in the store or are deemed too beat up to be sold, they get sold as rags. bigger operations will have a baler on site that cubes them into giant bales and loads them onto trucks for sale to a rag merchant (who may sell them to an agency that sends them to a third world country, to a pulping outfit, or anything else that miscellaneous cloth products are used for) while smaller outfits will bring them to a central point or sell them to a larger operation. places to small to do this will just throw the clothes away.
when you donate unsellable clothes to a non-profit organization like goodwill, they will either gain money from selling in a store or will gain profit selling as rags. either way gets them something but rag bales go for a fraction of what they can make from selling the items on a rack.
savers, for example, is a for profit store but it has a non-profit partner (in some states its the epilepsy foundation) that is the supplier of the thrift merchandise (picking up at people's homes and trucking it to a store). if you donate stuff at a savers store (a for-profit), they keep track of how much stuff, and they pay their NP partner for that donation even though it was donated at the store.