Using old clothes as mulch?

I have a sheet with a hole in it and some worn out tshirts, all cotton. I need more mulch to cover grass in the food forest I’m trying to establish, and was thinking of using this stuff. My son is making me second guess this due to other chemicals, dyes, etc they may have been treated with. What do y’all think?

Bedding is usually treated,  but that washes off slowly over time.  Same with most other problematic stuff.  Generally,  if the cloth composts,  it's usually okay (yes, I'm qualifying that statement).

The biggest problem I have composting 100%cotton or 100%linen clothing is the thread doesn't break down and is tricky to remove from the soil.   Maybe cut the seams and hems off to avoid that problem.

I will second what R Ranson has said. In my salvaging and repurposing quest for cloth based knowledge, I found evidence that even if products are labeled as 100% cotton that does NOT count for the stitching.

Kind of goofy, but fitted sheets can make great light duty tarps for outside grills/chippers and the such. Think if there is a use for that before cutting out the elastic.

We have used some old shirts and sheets as temporary insulation around the fitting at our well.

After a year these still looked like shirts and sheets.

Maybe cutting these into strips might help in composting them.

I don't have a compost pile due to windy conditions so we hauled them to the local dumpsters at the landfill.

Sheets do make great covers to keep frost off plants.

from my experience in a wet place, consider your snail/slug population and how it might affect that area. I know if I put down anything like that it turns into the slug motel. Maybe in that area of your orchard that would be no problem, in which case great.

(I also use sheets as frost/hail covers and anything smaller gets ripped into strips to tie up tomatoes, squash, beans, etc.)

I just pulled this out of the garden soil, it seemed to be from a strip of cotton sheet used as tie last year. Although  the label said 100% cotton, the remaining seemed to be more than polyester threads. I did a burn test, it gave out some black smoke (synthetic), but also smelled like burnt paper with powdery ash (cellulose). If you want to use fabric as mulch, remove it before it disintegrates so far that it is difficult to remove.

We've pulled enough tangles of thread, tags, and other ex-cloth detritus from the compost, garden beds and under trees that we have a blanket* policy now: it all goes to biochar if it's mostly natural fibre.

* [see what I did there]

As May has found just be careful, lots of fabrics claim to be 100% cotton but generally they are allowed to excludes threads from this as it is such a small amount.
Buttons are another thing that are nearly always plastic now as well

In addition to the plastic threads and tags that everyone has mentioned, so many modern textiles contain teflon. Anything "wrinkle-free" or "stain-resistant" is so because it's coated in teflon. So many other forever chemicals in the dyes and treatments used in textiles as well.

Reading Darin Olien's Fatal Conveniences was kind of a wake up call about the dishonesty in labeling and how much stuff companies just aren't required to disclose.

Plants do take up these chemicals from the soil, and we consume them when we eat those plants. We get an even higher concentration when we eat animals that have eaten those plants. So many things I would have used in the garden before that I never will again.

Mathew Trotter wrote:so many modern textiles contain teflon. Anything "wrinkle-free" or "stain-resistant" is so because it's coated in teflon.

Great, now another thing I have to look out for. I never heard of this until now. Thanks for the heads up!

Timothy Norton wrote:

Great, now another thing I have to look out for. I never heard of this until now. Thanks for the heads up!

Right!? It was shocking news to me too. But it makes sense that they had to do something to get all of these qualities that cotton doesn't naturally have. 🙃

Tereza Okava wrote:from my experience in a wet place, consider your snail/slug population and how it might affect that area. I know if I put down anything like that it turns into the slug motel. Maybe in that area of your orchard that would be no problem, in which case great.

(I also use sheets as frost/hail covers and anything smaller gets ripped into strips to tie up tomatoes, squash, beans, etc.)

If sweaters I take the good hardware off (good quality zippers, buttons and such) then make comforters out of them even if only for camping.

I also make tool bags out of sturdy rugby cotton / canvas.
Lighter weight might be used for assorted kitchen stuff and hung from bike pulleys
The zippers that still work but don't open and close well are great for bags.

I will also combine a favorite hoodie having a dead zipper with a sleeveless vest with a good zipper. Mind you, no one would know or care if you wear pajamas all day out in the bush!

Regarding slugs:
On occasion I have misplaced frost covers (sheets) and also find in Spring they have turned into slug hotels. I slice and dice and give them to my pigeon chicks who then develop a taste for slugs, so not a total waste if I get an impromptu slug hotel!

If life gives you slugs, teach your pigeons to eat slugs and they will eventually hunt for them to feed to their children!

The big sheets I usually use for quilting a new cover on the back of comforters with linings that are starting to get threadbare. If they are already too far gone, frost covers and eventually use them as sturdy garbage bags, or as strips for tying up stuff including bags of garbage, which is all that synthetic blends are good for.