As part of a little-known Department of Sanitation program, New York City buildings with at least 10 units can request an indoor textile recycling bin. Since the program debuted in 2011, the number of buildings with bins has grown each year, reaching 2,460 in 2024.

“Textiles are the next frontier for diversion and reuse,” said Joshua Goodman, spokesman for the Department of Sanitation. “Historically, capacity to do anything with textiles has been limited, but that is changing.”

The weight of the collected textiles — including clothing, shoes, linens and even stuffed animals — peaked at 2,355 tons in 2019. It sagged to 1,230 tons in 2020 but has been rebounding ever since, reaching 1,948 tons in 2024.

People often don’t know what to do with unwanted fabric items. Many of the city’s thrift stores have closed, and there is a lack of infrastructure for the collection, sorting and reuse of textiles, said Anna Sacks, a waste expert known as the Trash Walker, adding that today’s buildings should be designed to include sufficient space for all refuse.

“The city’s buildings are not designed for the waste streams we have now,” Ms. Sacks said. “In the early 1900s, they didn’t have as much clothing, they had less closet space and they weren’t thinking about a bin to collect textiles. That would have been a ludicrous idea.”

Dan Green, a co-founder of Helpsy, which is contracted to empty the city’s bins, said that most used clothing isn’t that used at all. “In the U.S., the average piece of clothing is worn six or seven times,” he said. After Christmas, Helpsy sees a surge of clothing that was never worn.

Binned items should be clean, dry and odorless. Mr. Green urges people to remove hangers and to bag their clothing before binning it. Paired items, like shoes, should be discarded together. “We throw away 3 percent of the clothes we collect, generally for mildew issues,” he said.

Bins are sometimes placed in a laundry room or recycling room, but shouldn’t be in an outside courtyard or alleyway, where water can infiltrate. “We like the bins in the lobby where everyone sees them every day,” Mr. Green said.