Underwear Recycling

Underwear is delicate and worn every single day, and therefore has a limited life with a high turn-over rate. You cannot donate it in Australia, so the only pathway is landfill.

With 204 million underwear items being imported into Australia every year that is a lot of waste!

We live by our values and exist to create positive change, so we take back our waste, plus other brands!

Our recycling tally so far: 20,080 items and counting!

Underwear Recycling FAQs

Is this open to everyone?

As a small, social enterprise, right now we can only afford to offer this service to our customers.

This has been factored into the price of our undies and helps to support our numerous other social and environmental projects.

We are so excited for a future where everyone can participate in recycling their underwear. We look forward to opening this up as our business grows.

What can You accept for Recycling?

We accept underwear: Mens, women's and kids for recycling.

We accept period underwear and shapewear.

We take bras, ones in good condition go to Support the Girls for reuse, ones in poor condition go through our recycling process.

What can't you you accept for reycling?

We cannot accept socks, swimwear, clothing, reusable pads or exfoliating gloves.

If your not sure if what you want to recycle is eligible please email us at hello@underwearforhumanity.com.au

Do you accept Bras?

We take bras, ones in good condition go to Support the Girls for reuse, ones in poor condition go through our recycling process.

Where do I send my underwear for recycling?

Please email us at hello@underwearforhumanity.com.au for details on where to send your recycling

What materials do you accept?

Every fabric is accepted!

Do you pay for postage?

We would love to, but unfortunately, we cannot afford that cost.

We pay for the storage and sorting at our warehouse meaning that by recycling your undies your also supporting work training of at risk youth.

We also pay for sanitising wash, shredding and shipping to process.

Is the underwear you make made from old undies? That seems unhygeinic!

No! Our bras are made from nylon industrial waste, our underwear is made from Tencel and Organic cotton. We are unable to do a closed loop recycling right now, hopefully one day!

Find out more about our responsible materials here.

What do i mail my recycling back in?

You can reuse the packaging from your order or use your own packaging! Depending on how much recycling you have you can use a satchel or a box.

What can you recycle with us?

We accept

  • Bras in wearable condition
  • Worn out briefs, g strings, shorts etc
  • Very old bras
  • Wearable or old crops
  • No socks or swimwear please!

In all fabrics!

All bras are accepted. Please make sure to wash them and cut off any metal trims or trinkets.

Can bras be recycled?

Reuse is even better! Send us your bras and we will quality check them, and send them to Support the Girls a charity that supplies bras to women in need.

The sorting of these bras also creates work for Social Engine.

If your bras are in poor condition please still send them in, we will recycle them.

How do you recycle the underwear?

We sort, sanitise and send for shredding. They are then processed to have a second life as insulation. Gently worn bras are donated to Support the Girls

Until we have the infrastructure for fibre-to-fibre recycling (some estimate that is up to 10 years away), repurposing waste and diverting it from landfill is the best way to keep the value in your underwear for longer.

learn more in our impact report

Sign me up! Where do I send?

If you are a customer you will receive the address of where to send your old undies in an email post-purchase.

At this stage we can only recycled our customers undies & bras. We would love to take everyone's underwear, but it costs us approx 42c per pair to recycle and the sale of our underwear covers some of that cost. 100% of our profit goes to social and planetary good and would really love your support to help make this happen.

For any queries, please email hello@underwearforhumanity.com.au

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