That's true, animal shelters love used towels. If they aren't frayed or stained (and we know you must know how to do laundry), our Displaced Women's shelter and the Clothes Bank will take them (clothing bank will take bedding, cookware, towels although not everyone knows that. I asked if I could drop off bedding, washed comforters one time and they were on the phone to a waiting list while I was still unloading my car)

Although I often find use for tired towels. DH keeps one or two in his truck and another in the back of my SUV. A stack in a tote on his side of the garage where he calls them 'car towels' used in keeping the vehicles clean. I use them indoors for big scrub jobs like the slate entry and for weeding along our LONG circular driveway, kneeling on them instead of cement. I can find lots of uses for old towels, they even have their own plastic hamper in the garage so they don't go too messy into the built in wooden laundry room hamper ;0)

Mine go to the garage for various uses there...

My bath towels that were kind of tired looking went to Goodwill. No idea if they sell them as bags of rags or whatever. I replaced them with the big fluffy ones I preferred. The excess hand towels go into the laundry room ( why do I have so many? ) and the tired ones out to the pole barn. DH tosses the really bad ones. I have a basket of old towels I keep in the closet for cleaning jobs that often ruin them for good.

Towels that are 25 years old and still in good shape are so unlike the newer ones. I regret getting rid of the ones that belonged to my gma as I've never found any of that quality.

No need to throw out bath towels or relegate them to the rag-bin for fading or stains or color deterioration/change. It doesn't prevent them from working.

Tears and physical deterioration, yes ... rag-bin.

My dad once found some nice bath towels in the adjacent neighbor's trash at the curb. No wear or anything wrong with them except a couple had a slight discoloration along a fold-line. He kept a couple, gave three to me. We figure they had tossed them out upon doing a bathroom redecoration. Goofy! The discoloration on the ones I took cleared after several washes (I routinely use hot water and either oxygen or chlorine bleach).

Keep them!!! Newer towels are NOTHING like the older ones. I've got some I'm using that were bought 25+ years ago. When the binding along the edge gets frayed, I run them through my serger (overlocker) and get more years of service. I recently used FrayCheck on one that has a small hole in it. LOL I hate our newer fancy Supima towels from Lands End --- when washed in anything over 100F water, they get scratchy. Rubbish.

I cut them up into manageable size, serge the edges and use them for re-usable cleaning rags.

Thank you everyone! Looks like I will be calling a few animal rescue organizations to get rid of my excess towels.