Lower Manhattan’s Guide to Donating, Recycling All Your Old Stuff

The new year is always a choice time to clean out your excess stuff, so you can make some room in your home and donate things to people in need. 

New Yorkers throw out 200,000 tons of clothing every year, and much of that could go somewhere more useful than the trash. Lower Manhattan has several ways to donate and recycle your unwanted goods.  

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A Directory For Donating Just About Everything 

DonateNYC operates a map showing places to donate just about anything in neighborhoods across the city. You can filter by location and category, including baby goods, books, food, personal hygiene, toys and food. 

Some places in Lower Manhattan accepting donations include St. Margaret’s House Thrift Shop (49 Fulton Street) which accepts all types of items; Center for Hearing and Communication (50 Broadway), which accepts healthcare goods; Court Appointed Special Advocates (48 Wall Street); and Educational Alliance (197 East Broadway), which accepts arts and crafts supplies. 

Clothing And Textiles 

You can donate your old clothing that’s in good condition to a number of places, but even clothes and other textiles that are too beat up to wear can be recycled. The Department of Sanitation keeps a list of places you can send your textiles (e.g. clothes, shoes, scarves, rugs, towels) to make sure they get recycled. 

A variety of places accept textiles, including big-name brands: for instance, J. Crew locations accept denim jeans for donations and recycling; H&M at 18 Church Street accepts clothes and home textiles from any brand, and will give you a 15% discount for your items too.  

Coats

Get your old coats out of the closet and put them to use keeping your fellow New Yorkers warm. New York Cares tracks coat drives across the city on their map. Near Lower Manhattan, coats are accepted at Safe Horizon (2 Lafayette Street) on Mondays, 9a–12p.

Electronics 

E-waste is one of the trickiest things to get rid of, and unfortunately it’s getting a little trickier. The LES Ecology Center recently had to close its e-waste collection warehouse in Gowanus. The group hosts regular pop-up collection events around the city and the next one will likely be in January, though it has yet to be scheduled.

Several retailers including the Apple Store and Best Buy, as well as other organizations, accept e-waste. See a map of options at the DSNY site, and a list of other drop-off sites here.