Use Your Used Clothing for Charitable Giving and to Help the Environment

The environmentally sensible reasons for donating clothing to charity aren’t clear right away, but Americans send 10.5 million tons of clothing to landfills every year instead of donating it. Donating clothing to charity can help to reduce the amount of clothing in the landfills because the clothing is sent to other homes to be worn by other families for any number of years. Another related tidbit is that Americans recycle or donate only 15% of their used clothing. If a bigger percentage of clothing is donated instead of thrown away, then there would be even less clothing in landfills and more clothing being sent from home to home. The good news is that there are so many people donating clothing to charity right now that about 4.7 billion pounds of clothing are donated by Americans each year.

When to Donate Used Clothing? That is the Question
Many people obsess about their favorite items of clothing, but a good tip is that if you live in a one to two season climate and you haven’t worn an item in 6 months, it’s time to let it go. Helping families in need is, of course, one of the most well-known reasons to donate clothes to charity organizations, and there are organizations using the donations to help veterans and the blind. Remember, any charitable donation worth more than $250 (including donations of clothing and household items) will require a receipt to write off on your taxes. The value of the charitable donations will be calculated by people who know how to assess it, and donating clothing to charity can result in a significant tax perk. For example, men’s overcoats and suits are worth approximately $60 as a tax write-off.

The Eventful Clothing Drop-off 
So, you’ll only have to get the clothing bundled up and into the car and then try to find clothing drop-off locations. If you want to be sure that you know which organization will handle the clothing after you donate it, some of bigger charities may have drive-up car lines and they’ll take the clothing out of the car for you. Another convenient option is clothing bins located in the parking lots of pharmacies and supermarkets and other places in many neighborhoods. After donating clothing to charity, you might feel as though you can’t know how it will be used, but charitable organizations are working together to convert clothing donations to cash to fund programs for veterans.