Where Can I Recycle Yarn

Image Credit: ©Reduce Reuse Recycle

Knitters and crocheters are a resourceful lot, and one thing that we all hate is wasting yarn.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew that no piece of your yarn would be wasted? No small ball, no scrap. So you will want to know how you can recycle all yarn that you don’t think that you are going to use.

There are lots of options for recycling your unwanted yarn. Here are some ideas.

Where To Donate Your Yarn

Unwanted knitting yarn can be donated to local charity shops, textile recycling shops or community groups for re-sale and re-use.

Anywhere that you like to thrift yarn is an idea for where to donate it!

Alternatively you could find it an organisation that knits items for charities, from local groups that make blankets or toys to charities that make baby clothes or even toy octopuses for preemies.

Some clothing and textiles collection bags or banks will allow you to put balls of wool in but please always check first.

You could also offer your yarn on a reuse group such as Freegle.

Sell Your Yarn

There is a knitter out there that will want your yarn I promise! Whether you have enough to knit a sweater or a collection of odd balls of yarn, you can sell them on an online market place such as Facebook, Shpock or eBay.

Yes, you really can sell a collection of yarn oddments, even yarn that has been previously used, even mixed weights, different fibres and types of yarn.

Pro Tip: if you can sort your yarn by colour groups they may sell better than a completely random collection of yarn. In my experience pink and green are most popular colour groups.

What If My Yarn Is Tangled?

If your yarn is badly tangled or otherwise unusable it may be possible to donate it to a charity shop as rag, but again always check first, please don’t dump your unwanted yarn on a shop that will have to just put it in the bin.

Can you turn your scraps into usuable yarn? Yes!

If you are one of those people who likes to keep every single scrap of yarn however tiny it is possible to make it into new yarn – if you have access to spinners equipment such as hand carders to brush the yarn, and a spinning wheel or drop spindle.

This video shows you how it can be done, even with acrylic yarn.

Give Me An Idea To Use My Small Balls Of Yarn

The easiest answer is to make a garment by just knitting or crocheting up all those short lengths into a scrap sweater. Here are some scrap sweater ideas from Pinterest.

If you have small amounts of yarn to use up you could also knit something quick for charity such as these 7 superfast things that you can knit for charity. Most of them could be knitted up in just an evening

Where Can I Recycle Yarn

Where To Donate Your Yarn

Sell Your Yarn

What If My Yarn Is Tangled?

Give Me An Idea To Use My Small Balls Of Yarn

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