Season of Giving & Your Unwanted Clothes
Posted on December 17 2021
Give away your unwanted clothes, don't throw them away! And there is more to it than you might think! Thoughtful giving is local thinking.
While you may have read or heard some or all of this before, understanding where your clothing really ends up can make a big impact on the environment and big benefit to more people when deciding where to give away your clothes.
Fashion and textile waste contributes to global warming! 85% of our clothes are dumped into landfills or get burned. This is not just old, worn clothing but unused textiles and unsold clothing. This is equal to about 80 pounds per person and 13 million tons in total every year!
The fashion industry over-produces merchandise by about 30-40% each season, contributing to about 10% of all global carbon emissions. As clothing joins the rest of the garbage in landfills, it breaks down and releases toxic greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the environment.
At Goodwill, when textile items don’t sell in the store they go to their outlets; and if they do not sell there then are recycled. According to Goodwill, they have seen that “textile recyclers divert about 2.5 billion pounds of used clothes from landfills.” However, for those items that don’t get diverted, they get tossed into trash bins. Ultimately, this becomes a problem for not only the environment, but for Goodwill as well, as their trash bill increases. When throwing clothes into the garbage, this also becomes an increased cost for the town in which you reside.
Clothes that can’t be resold in stores here in the U.S. are also sent overseas. This is not a good solution. For profit and nonprofit organizations that send clothing to third-world countries are not as charitable as one might think. This can negatively affect that country’s local economy by competing with local merchants and textiles businesses causing them to struggle even more to make a profit. Choosing to donate to your local organizations in need is a much better solution.
Even when we try to recycle our pre-worn clothing, it’s important to understand that 60% of textiles are not recyclable, and therefore end up in landfills. Synthetic fibers can take up to 500 years to degrade, and some do not degrade at all, and all do not biodegrade. Although textiles do not compost or biodegrade in the same way as food, natural fibers do compost or biodegrade taking up to 5 years (linen in a couple weeks, wool about five years).
Once you have given all the wear and love you want to a particular article of clothing, and it is still in good condition, we strongly encourage you to gift your clothes by donating during this season of giving for these winter holidays. Give away good items. Donate items you would be comfortable wearing or giving to a friend or family member. Give or donate locally. Here are some suggestions:
-Online local forums and gift giving communities like Freecycle or Buy Nothing Project
-Local organizations that have community closets. Check the request list for most needed items.
These include: homeless shelters, foster care programs, refugee organizations, prisons, free clothes banks (like dress for success), transitional living programs, youth and women’s emergency shelters.
Wishing you a wonderful and sustainable winter season!
Resources:
-https://calpirg.org/blogs/blog/cap/fashion-industry-waste-drastically-contributing-climate-change
-https://remake.world/stories/news/what-happens-to-the-clothing-goodwill-cant-resell/
-https://imperfectidealist.com/get-rid-of-clothes-responsibly/
-https://www.treehugger.com/clothes-you-donate-dont-always-end-peoples-backs-4863686
