Recycling clothes and household linen

[Headers]

We have received an email from an our mairie saying that the relais system for recycling clothes, linen and shoes has been suspended with immediate effect.
So the benne for this cannot be used.
Any ideas what to do with this stuff? I could try asking our local waste processing people but they aren’t very forthcoming.

[Lori]

Yes, the Relais bennes have been out of business for many weeks now.

Locally, we have several second hand shops you can take most anything that still has life left in it. Not sure if your community has such a shop (often called Friperie or Seconde main).

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They appear to be en grève for more of the share of the money collected ‘for recycling’ when things are bought. Naturally they are only getting a proportion of it after the administrators have taken their somewhat over large cut.

[Veem]

We are fortunate in having some excellent charity shops nearby. One, Hope16, has so much donated that their offerings are set out like a well-organised department store, and there is very little not on offer. It would have grieved me to take some of my clothes to the déchetterie, but I know that this charity shop will sell things cheaply, at realistic prices, for the benefit of animal charities and last year they donated many thousands.

[suein56]

We usually donate such stuff to either Emmaus or our (very) local charitable équivalent.

[Blaze]

There's a good charity place near here but they are very particular about what they take, i.e. it's got to sell. Emmaus and the Crois Rouge are completely innundated ...

When I was with the Croix Rouge in Saumur, we put tons and tons of unsold/unwanted clothes into a container bound for Belgium. There the clothes would be sorted and would end up in different parts of the world for different purposes.
I was amazed at the number of women's leather jackets, in good condition, that the CR shop just couldn't shift. All for recycling somewhere ...

[MAD87]

This was on the news a couple of nights ago. Apparently there is a surfeit of used clothes for recycling, many of them cheap Chinese clothes.

[Lori]

Apparently there is a surfeit of used clothes for recycling, many of them cheap Chinese clothes.

I think this has been the case for many years. I remember when we were living in Bédoin, many years ago, Emmaus and the Croix Rouge could not take our things (we were moving and had some really nice things we couldn't keep) as they said they were overloaded with goods and were forced to place (good condition) furniture outdoors, unsheltered.

In the U.S.A., we were told the majority of goods given to Good Will are shipped to various foreign countries.

[Hotrodder]

That has long been the case. And it makes sense.

[ajm]

Apparently in our area you are not to put used textiles in with the household rubbish. The tip does not have a specifis skip for them so we put them in a black bag and hope