Help Yourself and Others: Clothes Recycling at the Saturday Greenmarkets

Football is back. Pumpkin beer is on shelves. People are less shiny and uncomfortable-looking. This can only mean that fall is here! Let’s fill our closets with cozy sweaters to celebrate.

If you’re like me, seasonal closet cleaning doesn’t have much to do with actually being organized or providing enough room in there so that your clothes don’t get shoved (and ultimately, stuck) together and wrinkly. It’s more about the fact you don’t actually have the space for all of your clothes AND the homemade beer making kit or another seemingly necessary household item and therefore must get down to work. Luckily, GrowNYC makes it easy to recycle old clothing at any of the five Saturday Greenmarkets in Union Square, Inwood, Grand Army Plaza, Fort Greene and McCarren Park.

The best part for me about this is that they do the sorting for you. Just show up clean clothing, shoes, bedding, linens, hats, handbags, belts and other textiles and they’ll figure out how to use it – whether it’s a business suit from that office job you loathed, a prom dress you totally brought to the city “because you never know,” or the regular old sweater that the ex you now hate got you for your birthday. Materials are sorted into different grades and then sold for reuse as clothing, linens, etc or for the crappier extras (ie that shirt you spilled wine all down the front) to recycling markets that turn materials into wiping rags, fiber for car seats and insulation.

All donations are tax-deductible but ultimately, it’s just plain good karma for broke asses to help out other broke asses. Also, someone out there is probably waiting to fall in love with that magenta taffeta prom dress just as much as you did in the 11th grade.

GrowNYC Recycling
Saturdays at the Greenmarkets in Union Square, Inwood, Grand Army Plaza, Fort Greene and McCarren Park.
Click HERE for exact locations and times

Photo Credit: Play Green