As the new school year approaches, "buying new school uniforms" is inevitably a hot topic in Shenzhen parent chat groups. This year, a school uniform trade-in model has quietly gained popularity in some communities: residents hand in one old uniform and get 30 yuan off a new purchase, while the collected old clothes are cleaned, disinfected, repackaged, and sent to schools for left-behind children in Yunnan, Sichuan, and other places.

From August 14 to 16, at the Party-Mass Service Center of Wenchang Street Community in Shahe Subdistrict, Nanshan District, Zongyue Uniform Company held activities for three consecutive afternoons, collecting more than 2,100 old school uniforms and attracting 354 participants in the trade-in. Many residents came specially from Luohu, Bao'an, and other districts. Resident Aunt Zang brought 10 old uniforms, traded for 4 new items, and donated the remaining 6 directly. Taking Taobao platform prices as an example, a primary school boys' short-sleeved T-shirt is listed at 69 yuan, and after participating in the trade-in, the actual payment is 39 yuan.

The processing of the collected old uniforms is quite rigorous: first manual sorting to remove severely worn and faded clothing, then uniformly sent to a cleaning plant for high-temperature disinfection and repackaging. Some are donated through the "Blue School Uniform" public welfare initiative to Hope Primary Schools in impoverished areas, while another portion is collected by community workstation heads and distributed free to families in need as shared uniforms. From June to August this year, the company has sent hundreds of shared uniforms and a batch of brand-new formal attire to two Hope Primary Schools in Yunnan.

Shangfen Community in Longhua District is testing another model: the "Neighborly Warm House" integrates display, disinfection, recycling, and exchange, and has established a "caring resource database" to precisely match disadvantaged children with "one file per child." Since operation began, it has collected 160 old uniforms, and residents have applied for 126.

From companies entering communities for trade-ins to communities building their own circulation sites, both paths are exploring effective recycling of idle school uniforms. This is not only the flow of clothing, but also a transmission of love between the city and mountainous areas, and it provides a reference model for school uniform recycling.

Source: "School Uniform Trade-In" Rises in Communities · Originally published on 2026-08-21