What clothing and textiles can be brought to GIRO

GIRO Clothing Team

Gabriola Island Recycling Organization (GIRO)

Thinking of clearing out your closets? Thank you for thinking of bringing them to GIRO. Here is what happens when you drop off your clothing and textiles at the depot:

Your donations of clean, gently used clothing and textiles are sorted and assessed for quality, cleanliness and seasonable suitability. Those that appear to be in good condition are placed on hangers and taken directly to the sales floor – sometimes arriving there before you can get parked and come in to shop. We sell these items at extremely low prices to support folks who are shopping on a budget. We do our very best to curate the stock in the store and present the kinds of items that the season (and our customers) demand. For this reason, we must ask people to store off-season items in their own closets until we can place them on the sales floor. We accept spring and summer items between March 1st and July 31st, fall and winter items from August 1st until February 28th.

At this time, because our limited storage facilities are chock full of stored textiles that are stained or otherwise too damaged to be serviceable, we are forced to limit the items we are able to take in until our shredder can catch up to our supply. Please consider sorting your items with the following criteria in mind:

Wearable items – Are they clean, seasonal and saleable? Are the zippers and buttons intact? Are they stain free, without holes and is the elastic still…elastic? In other words, is it good enough that you might offer it to friend? If so, thank you, we welcome these with gratitude.

Bed linens – Are they clean, undamaged and stain free? Thank you, we can take those.

Rags – are they clean and absorbent? Damaged tea-towels, bath towels, cotton and/or hemp t-shirts are all serviceable and welcomed by tradespeople of all kinds. We can accept these too.

We can also accept good quality fabrics, sewing needs and yarns to supply our crafters year-round. 

Thank you again for bringing us your clothing and textiles. Our goal is to extend the life of clothing through reuse and repair, divert clothing from going to the landfill and encourage sustainable consumer practices.