Wool, silk and cotton will decompose....It was once living.

I work as a volunteer in a rescue mission part time. We see very few pure animal or plant fibre clothing articles today. We sort them out when we do to gain a few pennies more for the natural garments.

Thank you for your response. Good to know that I can toss these
pants into the c. pile instead of the landfill. Too bad they have
holes in 'em, now they fit, thanks to losing weight. Oh, well.

I composted a pair of shorts recently that were 80% cotton and 20% polyester...when I found them after a year the cotton had been consumed and just the polyester was left...see thru shorts. LOL I compost t-shirts, old towels, washcloths, etc.

Peggy

I would like to know if I can dig up a hole up to 3 feet, then fill it with some water, mix it with some of the returning dirt then put whole t shirt or something in there, will earthworm come out and eat them or what ?

I use cottons and wools as mulch, covered with a compost or leaf mulch.

mrcactus, I suspect decomposition will be very slow if buried in the soil. I don't know if worms would actually eat the fibers, even if they are 100% cotton but especially if they have synthetics. Also, as noted above, if they are not 100% plant fiber, the synthetic part will never decompose. In the future, archaeologists will wonder why you buried your shirt. Put it in the compost or under some mulch.

Cotton and wool will decompose, but VERY slowly, and only somewhat faster if cut into small pieces. Just throw the undershirt out, for heaven's sake.

Don't compost any boxers/briefs that have racing stripes on them!!

I don't throw anything out until it gets used for rags for awhile. After it's lived its life as clothing, then gets covered with dirt/paint/glue/grease etc., I don't feel too bad about tossing it. :-]

Ok Toxcrusadr: Ok what can I do to make the decompostion go faster - preferly whole, like if I lay a shirt or something onto something ? I have some that are 100 percent cotton.

An active compost pile is a faster way to decompose a cotton garment than burying it in the ground. Do you have a compost pile? If so put it in there. Not wadded up. Or, if you use organic mulches (bark, shredded wood, leaves etc.), lay it on the ground and put mulch over the top of it. It will be slower but if you don't need to dig around in there, it doesn't matter.