Toss the shirt, not the baby
You know how you want to donate something, but look at it and say, “Nah, there’s rip in the sleeve or there’s bleachmarks, so I’ll have to throw it in the garbage.”? I actually just tossed a linen blouse with a worn hole near the sleeve; luckily it’s in a clean wastepaper basket and not a nasty one.
So here’s something I did not know: charities like The Salvation Army would love to get your old, ripped, stained or buttons-missing clothing! Not for resale in their stores, but for resale in the secondary “rag trade” markets, where textile recycling is a billion dollar industry. Here’s the Chicago Trib article. Wow, does this make a difference in what we’re gonna put in the bags.
Thanks! I didn’t know this-I thought it was only ‘resale-able’ that was useful to them.
Really. Salvation Army won’t take my grandmother’s furniture that she tried to donate to them a year ago. Drawers open and close just fine but a few scratches. They rejected it and said “It requires work”. Aren’t they picky?
Well, here it doesn’t matter how ratty the clothing looks if they’re going to sell it by the pound for textile recycling. Scratched furniture they’d have to burn and towns get weird about that stuff.
Thanks for posting this, now I know what to do with the clothing that has little “blemishes”.