# What becomes of the clothes dropped off in donation bins? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2022, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662 "2022-09-16T11:01:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/21 "2022-09-16T15:36:49Z")
I brought all my deceased mother’s good clothes to a women’s shelter downtown, including shoes and purses, and they were gratefully accepted. Here, there is a Rescue Mission trailer in every major grocery parking lot open every day that takes donations of just about anything in trash bags. Drive up, hand it over. I am faced with that in the coming week, weeding through many years of clothing stuffed in three closets…I used to buy so so much from the Rescue Mission or Salvation Army stores! It was my hobby, I would fix things up - had some very nice classic pieces. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/22 "2022-09-16T15:52:54Z")
My work sometimes get things shipped to us packed in old clothes cut into rags. I don’t know whether it’s better or worse for the enironment than packing peanuts or bubblewrap but I’m always creeped out by it. It reminds me of a crime scene. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/23 "2022-09-16T15:59:56Z")
Interesting question! I would suspect weight has got to be a major factor, like you’ve already pointed out. Especially if the clothing gets wet. Could be that it would encourage a false sense of effectiveness like we are already seeing with plastic bottles, but on a much larger scale. It would really encourage “fast fashion”. Could be that the variety of material is so much greater than what you already see with metal or plastic, and there’s no way to effectively separate it. It’s better that it goes through a specific textile channel as opposed to the paper/plastic/metal/glass channel. Textiles probably just aren’t raw enough to go right to recycling. A bottle or a can has little to no use beyond its initial use, without processing back in to raw material. With clothing there’s a good chance it can be much better used as clothing instead of raw material. It might be better to put it through a sell/donate/recycle channel (such as we have with established donation centers) than to encourage recycling from the get-go. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/24 "2022-09-16T16:48:12Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I wear clothes until they aren’t fit to be worn. Every so often I’ll have a dirty job that needs my attention and I wear my absolute worst clothes so they can be disposable. I call those “knock around clothes”. I’m unlikely to be doing something as messy as you, but it’s always useful to have something to wear that you don’t care about damaging. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/25 "2022-09-16T18:06:34Z")
I used to volunteer at the local Goodwill. Donated items are brought in and are segregated into large bins. The clothing is gone through - one piece at a time - by hand and inspected for rips, stains and appropriateness (certain types of clothing is not accepted - underwear, etc). They are then separated by gender, size, and in our case color, staged on racks then ferried out to the selling floor. Most clothes sold within a week or two, in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/26 "2022-09-16T18:30:52Z")
I take my no-longer-wearable clothes (holey t-shirts, pants with the crotch rubbed out, etc.) to the local animal shelter. They use it for animal bedding. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/27 "2022-09-16T20:51:16Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I think a good chunk of donated clothing ends up overseas. I saw people wearing tees in Africa that sure looked like something an American would have worn. Here’s an article on one of those tees: > **[How Jennifer's bat mitzvah T-shirt wound up in Africa - Jewish Telegraphic...](https://www.jta.org/2013/12/10/culture/how-jennifers-bat-mitzvah-t-shirt-wound-up-in-africa)** > > With help from Facebook and Jewish geography, JTA tracks down a T-shirt spotted in Africa by NPR's Planet Money. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/28 "2022-09-18T05:34:59Z")
For a while, my girlfriend and I in Zimbabwe had a business where we sold second hand Levis obtained from illegally smuggled bails of clothes supposedly bound for Mozambique. So, yes. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/29 "2022-09-20T16:26:37Z")
A lot of these clothes end up in Ghana too. The expression for these clothes in Twi is _obruni wawu_ i.e., a white man has died. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2022, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/30 "2022-09-21T02:22:15Z")
A while back, I read a book about some Americans who were stranded in New Guinea after a plane crash during WWII, and eventually the survivors were rescued using, of all things, gliders. Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is because the author went there ca. 2010 to do research, and saw a lot of people wearing “Obama For President” t-shirts, with varying graphics. None of them actually knew who he was. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2022, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/31 "2022-09-21T11:49:16Z")
Old FQ thread: > [@Clothing donations](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clothing-donations/815467/): > > I took a bunch of old clothes down to the gas station yesterday, and deposited them in one of those [clothing donation boxes](http://www.triblocal.com/geneva/files/cache/2012/04/4-24-12_donation_box_1.jpg/460_345_resize.jpg). What actually happens to those clothes? I put in a couple of nice jackets (well, great condition but they were a bit dated – a brown corduroy sport coat and an almost-black, once very hip sport coat) and some very nice dress shirts and trousers, plus a bunch of cotton shirts and khakis that were a bit faded. It would be nice to think that someone might wear the nicer th… ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2022, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/32 "2022-09-21T19:37:40Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > What happens depends in part on which donation bins the clothing is dropped into. I only donate clothes to one particular organization, because I know they run thrift shops and I know they give people in need vouchers to be used at the gift shops and I know that they use the thrift shop revenue for charitable purposes. But there are other bins which tell you right on the bin that the clothing is going to a for-profit company and that the charity named on the bin gets a flat yearly “donation” from that company unrelated to the amount of clothing donated and there’s at least one donation pick-up service in my area that seems to work the same way. I won’t “donate” to those places no matter how easy it is. There were a few bins near me that were even more dubious. They all had branding that implied some charitable purpose without saying it. One had a narrative that said something to the effect of, “your clothing donation will help to provide jobs to people in need.” I thought, well yeah, they will provide jobs to people who work at the salvage facility that is reselling my clothes. No thanks. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/33 "2022-09-24T04:08:54Z")
Outdated but still wearable clothing can also be used by the community theater. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662/34 "2022-09-24T04:33:42Z")
actually, there was a place that took old ripped-up denim and jean type of stuff and made paper with them it was so novel that I think either sesame street or Mr rogers filmed the process at the factory and then showed you how to do an at-home version [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-becomes-of-the-clothes-dropped-off-in-donation-bins/971662.md?page=1)