#I’ve honestly been contemplating making a guide for what to donate and what not to donate

[safety-pin-punk]

Just saw a post telling people not to donate ‘fast fashion’ to thrift stores because its poor quality and they are already over run with fast fashion. I don’t even know where to start to explain why this is a bad take. But I guess I’ll attempt! (For context - I work at a thrift store that gets a LOT of donations every day!)

Everything that gets donated to a chain thrift store is processed and sorted. Yes even at those bin stores where you can pay by the pound for safety. If an item you’ve donated is deemed too poor quality for the store you dropped it off at, it doesn’t get thrown away, it gets sent to stores that don’t have the luxury of getting a bunch of donations every day.

When I say ‘too poor quality’ I mean in context to what else gets donated. For example: my store is in the middle of Rich People Town. So we get a lot of name brand clothes and a lot of high quality material clothes. So of course that is our first choice to put out on the sales floor when we get it. Someone else may have donated a slightly worn 50/50 cotton/polyester t-shirt that is still perfectly wearable, but we have better options at our store. So we send it to a store that *doesn’t* get those options as often.

If you think the shirt is so poor quality that absolutely no one would ever want it… well maybe you’re right… but you should still donate it anyway. Heres the process for clothes that aren’t sold at Goodwill (I cant speak on this topic for other chains though):

If clothes are not sold at a normal retail store after 5 weeks, they are sent off if an outlet store (typically pay by the pound). The point of outlet stores are to sell at ultra low prices to keep as much out of landfills as possible. If they still dont sell at an outlet store, the next step is auctioning it. The clothes are sold in lots for fairly low prices. The last stop for clothes that dont sell even at auction is that they are sent off to a textile recycler. So all non-ruined clothes eventually get used, even if its ‘poor-quality’

4. The ONLY clothing you should not donate is anything wet/moldy/covered in mildew or god forbid please do not donate clothes that have ANY type of bodily fluids on them. No one wants your kids pooped pants, the shoes you accidentally threw up on, or any uuhhh stained bedroom attire (all real things I’ve had donated). THESE are the only types of items that dont get put through this process. These types of clothes do get sent to landfills… especially if your kids poop is still in the pants…