SWIMWEAR RECYCLING

Worn-out swimwear is among the hardest garments in a wardrobe to dispose of responsibly. It is a blend, it is small, it is usually contaminated with elastic and hardware, and almost no kerbside scheme will take it. This page explains why, and what the take-back schemes that do exist actually do with what they collect.

The scale of the problem

  • Around 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year — an estimated £140 million worth.
  • One study put the average Briton's textile disposal at about 3.1 kg a year, of which roughly 0.3 kg is recycled and 0.4 kg reused. The rest is burned or buried.
  • Textiles that reach landfill can sit there for up to 200 years, and as they decompose they release methane, a greenhouse gas some 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a twenty-year period.
  • Doubling the life of a garment from one year to two cuts the emissions from producing and disposing of it by as much as 24 per cent.
Litter bin symbol painted on a wall
Most swimwear cannot go in a textile bank, and almost none of it can go in kerbside recycling.

Why swimwear specifically is so difficult

Three reasons. First, it is a blend: nylon or polyester knitted with elastane, and mechanical recycling needs a reasonably pure input stream. Separating elastane from nylon at scale is a chemistry problem that is being worked on rather than one that is solved. Second, it carries contaminants — underwire, clasps, sliders, rings, zips — which have to be removed by hand. Third, it is small and light, so the value recoverable from a single garment is far below the cost of processing it individually.

The result is that swimwear generally falls outside both charity resale, because worn swimwear is not resellable, and conventional textile recycling, because the fibre mix is wrong. It is the definition of an awkward material.

What take-back schemes actually do

A number of swimwear labels and larger retailers now run take-back schemes that accept worn-out swimwear from any brand. What happens next is usually not what people assume. Very little of it is turned back into swimwear. The realistic destination for a mixed, contaminated elastane blend is downcycling into industrial products — most commonly carpet underlay, insulation and industrial felts, where fibre purity does not matter and the material displaces virgin plastic.

That is a genuine improvement on landfill, and it is worth being clear-eyed about what it is: keeping material in use one more time rather than closing a loop. True fibre-to-fibre circularity for swimwear — old suits becoming new suits — is a stated long-term goal across the industry and is not yet operating at commercial scale for blended knits.

How to prepare swimwear for a take-back scheme

  1. Wash it. Contaminated textiles are rejected at sorting, and the whole consignment can be downgraded because of one item.
  2. Strip the hardware. Remove zips, underwire, clips, buckles, sliders and rings — anything metal or rigid. This is the step that decides whether a garment can be processed mechanically at all.
  3. Separate by fibre if you can. A nylon/elastane suit and a polyester one are different input streams. If the care label survives, keep it with the garment.
  4. Check the scheme takes it. Some accept any brand, some only their own; some accept swimwear only, some all activewear. Sending the wrong thing creates work rather than value.
  5. Post it in one consignment. The transport footprint of a single garment sent on its own is out of proportion to what is recovered. Save them up.

The Swimwear Edit does not operate a take-back scheme and cannot accept garments. Schemes are run by brands, retailers and specialist textile recyclers, each with its own address, rules and accepted materials — check the operator's current instructions before sending anything anywhere.

Better than recycling: not needing to

Every waste hierarchy puts recycling near the bottom for a reason. Repair comes first — a snagged seam, a perished strap or a failed clasp is fixable, and swimwear repair is one of the few alterations most tailors will still do cheaply. Reuse comes next: a suit that has lost its shape for swimming is often perfectly serviceable under a wetsuit, for gardening, or as something to get changed in.

And before either of those, there is the decision at the point of purchase. A well-constructed suit that is rinsed after every swim and dried flat out of the sun will last five seasons. The same money spent on four cheap suits produces four disposal problems and worse swimming. Further reading on the awkward end of textile disposal is in where to recycle tricky textiles.