Throw them in! I tossed in a pair of jeans & a denim purse last year & they are both gone!

I too have thrown jeans in my compost (cut up in pieces), and I also throw in cotton socks and underwear.

Dee

Thanks so much! Just what I was hoping to hear! That is awesome :)

I topped the pile with an old wool sweater once. The coon thought it was too good to pass up, but as he tried to abscond with it, it hitched to the metal fence, and the coon left empty handed. The sweater is gone now, composted.

Cotton scraps are a great addition to the compost.
The only stuff we seem to throw out in the trash is plastic and that is only if it is not re-usable or re-cyclable in some way.
Paper is compostable too though glossy stuff doesn't compost so well due to the coatings on it (often close to plastic.)

Leaves don't have to be shredded to compost, they just do it faster if shredded.

I threw a number of clothing items and towels in my pile, its kinda kewl to find the "stitches" or other leftover pieces that dont rot.

I found a whole long string from the seam of DD's stretchy pants.

Natural fibers, Cotton, Wool, Flax, etc. are good types of things to add to the compost pile, but the synthetics, Dacron, Rayon, Nylon, etc. are not.

A kind of weird thing is if you throw in a poly/cotton T-shirt. The cotton composts out, and you find a ghostly T-shirt shaped polyester webbing.

Old clothes then would be treated as a carbon source, i.e. a "brown"?

Depends on the fabric. Plant fibers (cotton, linen) are browns. Animal fibers (silk, wool, angora, etc.) are slow-release greens.

Rayon is actually wood cellulose. I think it would compost.
My clothes are almost all natural fibers and after they are no longer good as cleaning rags, they go in the pile.

Most of my clothing and fabric gets used or reused somehow. I give it away if I can't wear it or don't want it anymore. If it wears out, it becomes cleaning rags. Beyond that, it goes into the compost bin.

I used to quilt and sew. When I get a new sewing machine, I'll take it up again and make sure to keep the fabric scraps and stray threads, although the fabric scraps get sorted to filter out anything that can first be used for scrap quilts.

If they are just small scraps, you can also put them in strategic places for birds to find in late winter. I included a link to another thread (ha) on the subject. It's quite a treat to find a nest with scraps of your latest project in it! Of course, natural fibers are best, but others can also work as long as they don't degrade into long, nonbiodegradeable string that can injure or kill a chick.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fabric Scraps for Birds

I'm so glad to hear all of this info. I have a handful of denim I just couldn't throw into the plastic garbage bag