Brut Cake: The designer uses recycled materials to create innovative furniture. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

The Shanghai local says recycling textiles can be a way to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

"It can also prolong the lifecycle of landfills. Most clothes that are discarded and destined for landfill, incineration or disposal, can be recycled and reused," he says.

The clothes they collect will be donated to impoverished areas if they are in good condition. Others will be sent to qualified factories that will use them to make carpets and mops.

"It's important to help the public form the concept that some things that we see as useless are actually valuable. We're trying to get people to willingly join us in recycling by making it convenient, interesting and rewarding," Li says.

The group has invited Zheng Bo, a designer specializing in reworking secondhand clothing, to give courses on how to hand-make garments from recycled materials.

"It's my firm belief that some waste is actually resources that has been put in the wrong place. It's meaningful and interesting to re-use outdated clothes and people won't dislike or avoid them because they come from something that belongs to them, not others," says Zheng.

Zheng shows people how they can use a belt to create a decorative flower to put on pants, a pair of old jeans to make a pair of ladies shoes and how to make a decorative picture from a worn-out dress.