Recycle your old clothes, bags & shoes at these 60 textile recycling bins across S’pore

UPDATED on Wednesday, December 7 at 4:00pm: The article was edited to reflect a seventh location for the textile recycling bins deployed in Tanjong Pagar GRC.

Residents of Bukit Merah, Queenstown, and Tanjong Pagar can now conveniently recycle their old clothes with new textile recycling bins available in their neighbourhood. In an update shared by Tanjong Pagar GRC Member of Parliament Eric Chua, the textile recycling bins have been deployed at the following seven locations:

40 Cambridge Road
85 Dawson Road
1 Jalan Bukit Merah
127 Kim Tian Road
35A Margaret Drive
75B Redhill Road
4 Tanjong Plaza
These bins are recent additions to an existing network of textile recycling bins across the country. Residents can drop off not only clothes but also bags, shoes, accessories, belts, hats, plush toys, and even pillow linens. The items can be deposited in any condition.

How the bins work
The textile recycling bins are set up by Cloop, a local clothes swap organization, in partnership with Life Line Clothing, a Malaysian-based textile recycler. According to Tan Yin Ling, one of Cloop’s co-founders, the collected items are retrieved twice a week by the recycler, with the collection frequency set to increase depending on demand.

After collection, the textiles are transported to a facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where they are sorted by hand into around 500 categories for reuse, upcycling, or recycling. Items in good condition are sold in Malaysia’s second-hand market or sent overseas for reuse. Items not fit for reuse are upcycled into products like cleaning rags, tote bags, gloves, and floor mats, while shoes are used to create playground flooring. Items that cannot be upcycled are burned with coal to produce energy, in an effort to ensure “zero waste.”

Why recycle?
Making clothes is resource-intensive, and the rise of fast fashion contributes significantly to waste. In 2021, Singapore produced 189,000 tonnes of textile and leather waste, of which only four per cent was recycled. Conventional recycling bins in Singapore do not accept textiles, meaning most textile waste ends up as general waste.

Cloop’s textile recycling bins help close this gap. First deployed in July 2022, the bins have collected and processed around 21.5 tonnes of textiles so far. There are now around 60 bins across the island, with a goal of deploying 200 bins by the end of the year.

To find a Cloop textile recycling bin near you, check out their map.