The environmental benefits of donating clothes to clothing banks are enormous

The UK’s love affair with fast fashion is costing the earth

Let’s be honest, here in the UK, we love our fashion; from high street steals to next-day delivery trends, we buy more clothes per person than any other country in Europe.

But our appetite for fast fashion comes at a huge cost to the planet. As designer Stella McCartney famously said:

 “If I could have more people join me in creating solutions… then we’re going to [succeed]. But if I’m the only one… then it’s going to take longer. The minute we all join hands and have the same mission and the same honest approach, we’ll get there”. 

In 2024, an estimated 350,000 tonnes of used clothing ended up in landfills in the UK, with additional waste sent to incineration. A 2024 report from WRAP found that 711,000 tonnes of household textile waste were disposed of in general bins, with 11% of that going to landfill, equivalent to about 78,000 tonnes, while a larger portion went to incineration.

So what can we do about it? The answer might be hanging right in your wardrobe.

Why donating to clothing banks matters

It’s brilliant for the planet: There’s no reason perfectly usable clothing should ever end up in the bin. Even the smallest scraps of fabric can be recycled or repurposed. By donating your unwanted clothes to a local clothing bank, you’re helping to:

• Cut down on landfill waste
• Reduce harmful greenhouse gases
• Lower the demand for new clothing production
• Support a more sustainable fashion industry

Small actions, like dropping off a bag of old clothes, can have a massive environmental impact.

Two good deeds done: When you donate clothing, you’re not just helping the planet, you’re helping people too. Many clothing banks raise money for local community projects, schools, and charities. Your pre-loved items could help fund youth centres, shelters, or environmental initiatives across the UK. So every jumper, pair of shoes or coat you donate could be doing double duty by reducing waste and supporting a good cause.

Give your clothes a second life: Going back to Stella again, she said “Waste is a design flaw,” highlighting that waste is not an inevitable consequence of fashion but something that can be addressed through thoughtful design. Just because you’re finished with a piece of clothing doesn’t mean someone else can’t love it again. Donating helps others buy high-quality, second-hand clothes instead of new, which keeps manufacturing demand (and emissions) down.

Shocking but true:

The fashion industry is the 6^th largest polluter in the WORLD and emits about the same amount of GHG per year as the entire economies of France, Germany and the UK combined, according to consultancy firm, McKinsey & Company.

How can clothes be so environmentally destructive? Well, it boils down to five reasons:

1. Cheap materials: Fast fashion often uses cheaper materials and toxic dyes to create clothes, making it one of the largest polluters of clean water. Polyester is also one of the most popular fabrics in this industry, which is created with fossil fuels and can shed microplastics into the water system when washed.
2. Manufacturing locals: To keep manufacturing costs down, fast fashion brands tend to make their clothes in factories countries which often run on coal and gas – increasing emissions.
3. Water consumption: It’s estimated that the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic metres of water per year. Even natural fabrics can be an issue in the fast fashion industry. For example, to create a single cotton shirt, you’d need roughly 3,000 litres of water. Using this much water can increase the risk of drought, causing extreme stress on local communities.
4. Transportation: Many fast fashion brands operate online, which means we have to take the delivery into account as well. For example, the combined annual emissions of postal services in the US, such as FedEx, UPS and the U.S Postal Service are roughly the equivalent to the annual GHG emissions of 7 million cars. Some estimates show that shipping accounts for 2.5% of the world’s total CO2e, which is estimated to rise as high as 17% by 2050.
5. Waste: Fast fashion has led to a rise in the high turnover of clothes. Keeping up with fashion trends means that 85% of textiles go to the dump each year. Once people are done with the season’s best clothes, they’re onto the next.

Ready to make a difference?

As you can see, the environmental benefits of donating clothes to clothing banks are huge. That’s why we are passionate about reducing textile waste and helping UK communities benefit from sustainable solutions. That’s why we offer FREE recycled clothing banks to schools, councils, community groups and charities.