What to do with old clothes and shoes?

Clothes recycling at Cardiff St David’s

Are you wondering what you can do with your old clothes, shoes and beauty products? At St David’s, many of our brands will help you recycle your used garments, and some even offer rewards or discounts for keeping them out of landfill!

Stores from River Island to Sephora run fantastic recycling, repair and take-back schemes that help make your wardrobe more green. In this guide, we’ll explore all these great sustainability initiatives and how you can easily turn your next shopping trip into an eco-friendly mission.

What to do with old clothes at St David’s

Every action we can take to avoid throwing away clothes can make a big difference, which is why there’s a wide variety of ways to recycle or donate your old clothes at the centre.

Some ways you can save clothes from landfill at St David’s include:

Pre-loved trade-in: H&M have recycling boxes in all their clothing stores where you can drop off unwanted clothing or textiles and receive a voucher! Your pre-loved garments are then resold, repurposed or recycled.
Take-back schemes: Several of our brands partner with Reskinned, a circular fashion platform that takes your old clothes and resells, repairs or recycles them. You package up your items, send them to Reskinned and receive a voucher for your chosen brand. Stores at St David’s who work with them include River Island, FatFace, Oliver Bonas and Marks and Spencer.
Repairs or alterations: Levi’s Tailor Shops allow you to bring back your worn denim for repairs, patching or to give it a second life by crafting it into something new! FatFace has also teamed up with ClothesDoctor to offer repairs and alterations, so you can keep your favourite pieces with you for longer.

Recycling beauty products

If you have a pile of old beauty products you can’t recycle, why not bring them to St David’s on your next shopping trip? Some of our biggest brands will help you safely recycle them.

Sephora: If you bring old perfume bottles to the store, the iconic beauty giant offers you 20% off your next fragrance purchase!
The Fragrance Shop: When your favourite scent has run out, you can bring the empty bottle back to The Fragrance Shop and get 15% off your next purchase.
L’Occitane en Provence: Bring empty beauty and skincare products to the boutique from any brand and you’ll be rewarded with 10% off in-store. You can also refill certain products in-store too.
Boots: When you download the Boots Recycle app, recycle five items and spend £10 in-store, you’re rewarded with £5 worth of points on your Advantage Card. (Just make sure the items you bring back qualify for their scheme.)
John Lewis: With their BeautyCycle scheme, if you bring in five or more products and you’re a My John Lewis member, you’ll get £5 off when you spend £50 on B-Corp certified beauty brands the same day.
MAC: With the Back to MAC scheme, you can bring back empty beauty products and they will recycle them for you (just check they’re eligible).

What to do with old shoes

If you have worn or unwanted shoes at home that you don’t know what to do with, instead of throwing them away, consider bringing them to Clarks. Their ShoeShare scheme takes in donations of shoes that would otherwise go to landfill. Schuh also run a recycling scheme for your pre-loved footwear.