what about a mod that you can rightclick on apparel with low quality either used or just bad craft and then destroy it and reclaim a few ressources?
There are serveral mod that add recycle/reclaim/salvage abilities.
Mend&Recycle (resources depend on condiction of the appareal and crafting skill)
Vegetable Garden (50% reclaim of the appareal)
are just 2 examples.
Would it be easier to add a filter to the smelter Bills that's based on item quality? That way your dudes would auto-smelt any Awful quality items and regain some materials.
The smelter only can smelt some special appareal and weapons.
What are you doing with all the textile stuff you can't smelt ? Burn them ? Outdoor stockpile so they rot away ?
These mod's allow you to regain some of the resources even from the tainted ones.
Drawback, you will have alot of small stacks from any kind of leather around but alot of cloth since most of the appareal you loot are made of cloth.