Mostly clothes do not get recycled "per se" - as in they are not torn down to be made into new clothes. A lot of what is described as textile recycling is in fact reselling.  

Recycling as Marketing Tactic

A lot of clothing stores have clothes “recycling” bins whereby you can bring your clothes. Due to the lack of transparency around such programmes, we mostly do not recommend using  these bins.  Many of these schemes seem to just be a marketing tactic to get customers back into their stores with the incentive of discount vouchers for future purchases. 

Why not The Salvation Army?

Be aware that The Salvation Army gets far more clothes donations than it can deal with. This is not their fault. Likewise clothes put into their overflowing bins sometimes suffer water damage. 

Because they are treated as such a dumping ground by the public, and because we have no transparency about the fate of such clothes, we do not recommend them for clothing donation. 

It is better to donate your loved items to smaller charities and ideally to charities that deal directly with beneficiaries or to organisation that are transparent about how they handle donations.

Festive Clothing

The advice above apples to all types of clothing including clothing for festive occasions like Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, etc.