I’m never sure what to do with clothes that have, say, taken a large rip in the crotch. On the one hand, I obviously want to donate them-- surely to some people ripped clothes are better than what they have. But on the other hand, why does a needy person want a functionally defective piece of clothing any more than I do? Maybe it’s rude. Also, I worry that someone might be given the article as some sort of limited ration not realizing it’s semi-defunct and won’t be able to get something better.
If I want to donate something that has a rip/hole but is otherwise in good condition, I mend it first. Most charity movements I know of throw broken clothes away, so if you donate something with a rip the chances are big of it not doing any good at all. That, and I think it’s rude.
The local thrift stores are quite clear. Donate only something that is actually wearable by regular people. Not worn out, torn or stained. Anything they can’t sell has to be disposed of and adds to their costs.
One very common false belief is that thrift stores are only for poor people and poor people can’t be choosy. But thrift stores sell to a lot of non-poor people who are just looking for a bargain or something hard to find. So think “would a middle-class person wear this?”
I’d be even stricter when it comes to pick-up charities. Since they come to your house, the goods have to be better in order to cover the extra costs.
I recently read a thorough article (following a certain pink pair of pants) about the export to Africa of second hand clothes that were donated to Goodwill.
The clothes are first scanned by people working for these commercial companies; not only do they take out the clothes that are in some way damaged, but they also sort the clothes sort by sort (pants, blouses, bra’s) and by quality/how fashionable. These people know very well what sells best in Africa.
Then the sorted clothes are packed into large sacks, say, containing “20 ladies pants of medium quality” and shipped to Africa, where they are sold to bigger merchants which in turn sell them to small merchants which sell them at African markets for, say, 2 to five dollars per pair of pants.
So you need not fear that your clothes end up in a big sack in some refugee camp and some child happily takes off with your pants, only to discover, back in his tent, that it has a ripped crotch, and crying tears of disappointment.
I have been known to donate somewhat damaged clothes to Goodwill. As a thrift shopper myself, I know that sometimes people just need something that will do for Halloween, or maybe they’ll want to salvage the buttons, or Og knows what. However, on those occasions, I safety-pin a note to the item describing the damage. I don’t want someone buying it without realizing it has a problem.
I’m with ftg on this. I was quite disappointed years ago when I found that the people in the back of our local thrift stores were downright surly, sometimes laughing at the stuff I brought, meanwhile letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to place the stuff they rejected in their dumpster.
After that experience, I realized that they do have a point: they are probably inundated with things that people don’t want and just assume they can give to charity, when in many cases the cat-shredded sofa and pee-stained baby strollers are not wanted by anyone and actually cause additional costs in sorting, handling, and disposal.
Nowadays, my wife and I simply fill a 1m^3 box with stuff and ship it to her cousins in Brazil via slow container ship, and she knows her family will be ecstatic.
I wouldn’t give torn or soiled or broken anything to thrift stores these days.
Torn? Goes in the rag bin (though those fill up fast).
Soiled? Please, no. There’s nothing quite like opening one bag to find a Chanel purse and then another to find a dozen stained jockstraps.
If you have take them to a thrift store they are picky, but we have a local communuity action group that takes anything. I used to volunteer for them. We’d take out the best clothes and re-usable items to go into the thrift shop that paid the bills for the place, and the rest of the clothes went into a baler that made 4’x6’x2’ bales. These were then sent to Africa.
My rule is not to give anything that I wouldn’t use myself. If I don’t want it, then it’s an insult to give it to a charity–I should be giving nice things people will want to wear, not trash.
Charities do have to deal with a lot of plain junk–some people use them as dumpsters. One woman told me once that someone dropped off a giant load of empty shoe boxes. It’s a big drain on their resources to get rid of all the trash they get.
That said, although my preferred charity does not want torn-up clothes, it does send them to a rag factory. You can find ways to give unusable items to a place that will turn them into rags.
I turn them into rags. Given my large size each one is able to be made into several useful rags for things like working on the car, welding, plumbing and other dirty jobs that I would be hesitant to run through the washing machine. I do wear my clothes until they are rag worthy for the most part, mending them and making whatever repairs they need unless they get a hole or stain in an obvious place. Waste not want not, I believe the saying is, and it’s served me well so far.
I can’t speak to clothing, but our local “takes darn near anything” thrift is wacky.
A couple of years ago, we brought them some stuff. One of the items was a new in the box Apple keyboard. Without even looking or asking any questions, the “yard man” opened the box, tossed the box into a carboard recycling bin and flung the keyboard into the back of an open truck that had all sorts of electonic scraps scattered around.
“Uh, that was new.”
“We don’t take any electronic stuff”
“Wish you told me that before you destroyed it so I could maybe sell it on eBay or craigslist…”
Thanks to stupid behavior like that, we don’t go there any more.
Our thrift store gets so much they do end up having to take trucksful to the landfill. They explicitly say “No yard sale leftovers” because they do get enough good stuff to fill the store and support their social programs.
Lots of donations here in Australia go to large nationwide charity organisations, such as the St Vincent de Paul Society (also known as “Vinnies”) and The Smith Family, who take out the torn clothing they receive and cut it up into rags to sell to industry. According to the Smith Family website you can buy rags from them in 15kg bags. So I donate everything, and hope that my many fashion faux pas are at least good enough to wipe up toxic industrial slop.