The Best Ways to Donate Old Clothing
The textile industry is one of the biggest in the world; after all, everyone needs clothes to wear, from everyday clothes like jeans and shirts or coats all the way to work or school uniforms to sleepwear and costumes. This massive industry sells many millions or even billions of garments around the world every year, with the United States standing as a particularly large market for clothes. For example, the average American woman owns 30 outfits, a huge rise from the average nine outfits in 1930. Many men also collect many clothes, from sports sneakers to coats and jackets to logo tees and baseball caps, and often, these clothes are given away for charity. How to donate to charity? A person may wonder “where can I donate clothes?” when their wardrobe becomes too big, and helping families in need is always appreciated by the staff of donations drives. Donation guidelines are often simple enough, and many kinds of clothes can be given to those in need.
Rates of Donations VS Waste
How to donate to charity? And why? One reason to help donate to charities for families in need may be to help curb the rates at which Americans simply throw away old garments instead of putting them to good use elsewhere. In fact, it has been found that the average American throws away 82 pounds of textile waste every year, and only about 15% of clothes worn by Americans ends up being recycled or donated. All the rest, adding up to about 10.5 million tons that ends up in landfills instead, where it takes up a lot of space and is not doing anyone any good. This means that textiles have among the worst recycle rates out of all reusable materials today.
The good news is that while there is some unfortunate waste, many other clothes are indeed being given to charity as needed, and boosting rates of donations can make the ratio of donated VS wasted clothes more favorable. Tapping into Americans’ generous spirit may not be difficult; nearly 95.4% of Americans take part in charitable giving of one kind or another per year, and this often involves clothes, accessories, canned food, and kids’ toys for needy families. A few years back in 2011, nearly two million tons of clothes were recycled or donated by Americans, and if these numbers were increased even more, than many more needy families could be helped, and donations pick up sites’ volunteers may be happy to accept however may clothes that donors have to offer. Charitable clothing donations are always possible for today’s American consumers, and veterans charities and other charity services may never be far away. How to donate to charity? It is simple, free, and contributes greatly to helping those in need.
How to Donate to Charity
A household with a lot of clothes can use a simple and practical method to decide what clothes should be given to charity. The process of how to donate to charity begins with inventory, and this means that everyone in the household can gather every single article of clothing and accessory in the home and assemble them into a single enormous pile on the floor. Shirts and pants, dresses, skirts, coats, gloves, hats, shoes, boots, and even scarves can all be assembled in this manner to create a complete inventory, and many households may be surprised by how large this pile ends up being. Now, the family members can conveniently pick through this large pile and evaluate every piece of clothing. Clothes that are worn out, out of fashion, the wrong size, or redundant with better items in the wardrobe can all be assigned for charity and all stored in bags or boxes for transport. The remaining clothes that are being kept can then be returned to closets and dressers, and this may end up being under half the original count.
Finally, a person can look up local charity pickup sites and get the addresses of a local site, then deliver the bags and boxes of clothes there, and follow any directions given at the pickup site to help deposit these clothes. Volunteers at the charity site will take care of the rest, and now the donations process is complete.
