I was reading an old thread that I came across while looking for the Secret Santa thread… it was a thread about lame-ass presents. Someone was referring to a shirt they’d gotten and said “I threw it away within hours of opening it.”
WTF? Why would you do that? Do they not have Goodwill on your planet? What a waste! WHY? Can someone explain this to me? Why would someone throw away a perfectly good, new item when it could be donated for barely any more effort? Or is it just that in America you’re expected to just totally waste things right and left with no regard for anything?
So do you save up stuff and give it to Goodwill or do you just throw away stuff?
For me, I’ll throw away things if they are stained, ripped, or in bad condition, but I’ll donate the rest.
We donate everything to Salvation Army, ripped, stained, outgrown, used, unused, whatever. While I may not wear a too small stained sweater, there’s someone somewhere walking around in 10 degree weather in a t-shirt who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about a stain. It’s cheap (if not free) and it’s better than what he’s got, vanity be damned.
Hmm… must be different where you are. The place I used to donate to said that they threw away stuff that was ripped and stained that got donated to them, which is why I never bothered to donate it after that.
I take stuff to Goodwill, if it’s in reasonable condition.
Anything that I’ve worn until it has holes in it, I cut up and use for rags around the house. If somethings stained it can become rat around the house wear or a rag, depending on the general condition - either way it gets used until it’s really used.
Something that’s brand new that I get as a gift and don’t want will either be returned to the store where it was purchased (if possible), given to a friend if someone wants it or taken to Goodwill. I wouldn’t consider just tossing it out because I didn’t want it. That, to me, is just wrong.
I’d love to, but there’s no Goodwill bins within a reasonable drive of me and they closed the Salvation Army store. I sell what I can on Amazon/Ebay/whatever, but if there’s crap leftover, out it goes.
All the thrift stores in my area make regular appeals to not donate wornout or damaged clothing. It has to be in very good condition or it goes into the dumpster (which adds to their costs).
If it’s stained, faded, frayed or torn, it’s your garbage, not theirs.
1.) Being tidy is better than having a house of clutter
2.) Some places don’t make the effort with donations (Just try to donate a used car)
3.) Hi Opal!
Always donate it! If it’s something unusual, give it to your local high school’s theatre department. We got something like eight trashbags filled with stuff one time, went through it, and pulled a bunch of unusual stuff to keep on hand in our costume department.
I used to work as a rubbish collector. It was amazing what some people would throw out. Sometimes perfectly good clothes with the price label still attached. Other times stuff neatly folded at the top of the bin. I couldn’t find a use for everything, but anything that was obviously new we did find a suitable home for. Years later I still have clothes that I picked up off the truck.
My local Salvation Army throws away even designer clothes in perfect shape if they don’t sell after a couple of weeks. I’d donated tons of great clothes that had nothing wrong with them except that they didn’t fit anymore when I learned of their policy. The thought of them going into a dumpster still makes me furious.
Then I talked to a colleague who mentioned that her church takes used clothes and distributes them locally. Anything that can’t be used is saved until their annual mission in Mexico. Believe me, nothing goes unnappreciated or unused. Not all churches do this exactly, but they might have something else that will keep clothes out of the trash.
Yes, I agree that it’s a huge waste to toss clothes that haven’t even been worn…but I guess some people just figure donating clothes is too much trouble.
Even if you just put them out by the curb in a visible spot with a “Free!” sign, I bet that someone driving by would take them more often than not.
I remember reading somewhere that selling unwearable fabric for use in making paper was a major source of income for charities like Goodwill. Here are a couple of links I found via a quick Google.
http://www.dezignare.com/newsletter/recyclingtextiles.html
According to the Council for Textile Recycling, nationwide over four million tons of post-consumer textiles enter the waste stream every year. Most go to landfills, but around a million tons are collected by charity groups. About half of the textile products collected are sold as second-hand items, and the rest goes eventually goes to rag graders. There they are sorted for different markets and either sent to other countries for sale as used clothing, or chopped up and reclaimed to make items such as blankets.
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/TextileRecycling.htm
The Salvation Army is the largest operator of textile banks in the UK, with over 2,000 banks nationwide. On average, each of these banks is estimated to collect about six tonnes of textiles per year. Combined with door-to-door collections, The Salvation Army’s textile recycling operations account for the processing of in excess of 17,000 tonnes of clothing a year. Clothes are given to the homeless, sold in charity shops or sold in developing countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of Eastern Europe. Any un-wearable items are sold to merchants to be recycled and used as factory wiping clothes.
I used to work in a Salvation Army thriftstore. The clerks would take down the clothes that had not sold in weeks (we kept track of this by color-coded price tags) and put them in a bin that would go to the central distribution center, then to another store. And clothes did go overseas, and clothes were sold by the pound to rag merchants. Nothing taken off the rack ever got thrown away, but it may have looked like that to a customer when the castoffs were put into a large bin.
I would never throw away perfectly wearable clothing, even if I hated it! If I get something that just isn’t “me”, I usually ask my friends or my mom if they want it. Next, I ask my daughter if she wants it for dressup purposes. If she doesn’t want it, THEN I’ll put it on consignment or donate it to charity. I don’t understand wasting clothes that someone will want and appreciate.
If it’s ripped, stained or torn it becomes rags. If the material is nice, I give it to my mother, the master crafter.