Recycling in Fashion – What Really Happens to Clothes?

Recycling in Fashion – What Really Happens to Clothes?

Many of us hope toss our clothes into “textile” bins or leave them at the store, thinking they’ll be recycled. But what’s the reality? Does clothing recycling work as well as we think? It’s time to face the truth and find out what’s really happening with our clothes—and what we can do better.

Are clothes actually recycled?

Only a small percentage of clothing goes to true material recycling. Most goes to:

• incinerators or landfills,
• exports to developing countries (where they also become a problem),
• recirculate – if they are in good condition.

The problem is that most clothing is not designed with recycling in mind. Different materials, zippers, dyes – all of this makes recycling difficult.

What does “clothing recycling” mean in practice?

1. Mechanical recycling

It involves breaking down fabrics and spinning them again. Unfortunately, the fibers lose quality and cannot be recycled indefinitely.

2. Chemical recycling

Still developing technology that allows for the recovery of raw materials chemically. Promising, but expensive and not widely available.

3. Downcycling

The most common form of "recycling" – clothes are used to make cleaning materials, insulating materials, etc. As a result, the material leaves the fashion cycle and ends up as waste.

Clothes as global waste

Every second, a truckload of clothes ends up in landfill or incinerator somewhere in the world. Even in the case of charity collections, a large part of the clothes never finds a new owner. This shows that the system based on "give back, buy new" simply does not work.

The alternative? Extend the life of your clothes

The greenest clothes are the ones you already have. Instead of relying on recycling, let's focus on:

• buying second-hand,
• repair and modification,
• buying less but better.

It is not technology, but our choices that can actually reduce the scale of the problem.

RESTYLER – recycling in practice

At RESTYLER, we don't recycle fabrics - we reanimate them. We renew, select and create new styles from them, which go to people, not to landfill. Thanks to this, clothes really get a second life - in specific wardrobes, with a specific meaning.

👉 Order your RESTYLER styling