With rising concerns about the environmental and ethical costs of the consumer goods industry worldwide, secondhand retail has seen growing importance over recent years. The second-hand market for sustainable fashion and especially charities need good quality donations so they can raise money for their causes.
“We have enough clothing for the next 6 generations”
Patrick Grant, Great British Sewing Bee
The quality and quantity of clothing donations that we donate is the big issue. The rag trade that previously provided an extra income from unsaleable clothes and textiles. The price of rag had fallen from 45p per kg (2.2lb) to 12p per kg over the past three years. A children’s hospice charity has said this slump in the price of unwanted clothing has been costing it nearly £5,000 a week.
The problem is with the rise of ultra-fast, ultra-cheap fashion brands, the quality of donations is reducing and the volume of clothing produced and shipped globally continues to explode. With many consumers are offloading more of clothes after just a few wears.
“There’s an oversupply of clothes,” says Liz Ricketts, co-founder and executive director of The Or Foundation, a non-profit that researches Ghana’s Kantamanto market, one of the world’s largest clothing exchanges. This oversupply of clothes is “lowering the perceived value, and the real value, of everything.”
Hidden costs of second hand clothing market
Processing second-hand products is labour-intensive – and it’s costly for businesses. “We treat waste as if it is a free resource. Sure, you might give it away for free, but it takes a tremendous amount of effort and labour and skill to try to re-commodify that thing that you gave away,” says Ricketts, from the The Or Foundation. “Reuse is based on the quality and the condition of the individual item, which means that it requires a human touch and a human eye to assess that.”
So the better quality clothes you get and donate the more effective this system becomes and pushes fashions brands to make less and better quality. We all have the power to make this change.
Give good quality clothing donations
So when you are having a sort out of your textiles, refer to our guide. There is also this brilliant guide from BBC for Charity shops: Six things to check before you drop off your old stuff – BBC News.
Guide to donating pre-loved clothes
To contribute to sustainable fashion, please take care of what you donate.
- Yes please to clean, good quality clothes that someone will want to buy. Dirty or damaged items ends up costing money as they have to be sorted through and then disposed of.
- No thank you to dirty, stained, ripped or damaged clothes that cant be sold.
- No, thank you to duvets and pillows
- Drop off your clean, good quality donations to
- local charity shops Find a shop with the Charity Retail association.
- local clothing banks
- book a doorstep collection or post your donation with Traid or another reputable charity.
Some of the charity textile bags posted through your door or offer collection can be bogus. So make sure you are donating to a trusted charity. See this guide for Is the collection bag legitimate- spot the signs from Textile Recycling Association.
Donating at clothing banks
When donating at textile banks, put your donation inside the charity bank through the opening. If the bank is full, do not dump your bag of clothes next to it. It will not be saleable as it is likely to get damaged and ruined. This is also flytipping – no matter the good intention.
So please don’t waste your donation at the side of a bank as there are so many other ways to make sure your pre-loved wardrobe find a good home, as suggested above.
If you are donating to the second hand market, to make this an effective circular reuse system, we all should buy second hand clothes, rather than buying new clothes. This means clothes are kept in use and re-used again.
Repair, Buy and reuse second-hand clothes
With all these clothes already out there, we need to reuse and repair those clothes already out there.
As Mary Horesh from Ealing Repair cafe says “The most sustainable clothes we have are the in our wardrobes.” Ealing Repair cafe focuses on clothes and offers lessons on how to mend your clothes. Pop along to one of their Mend and Natter sessions and look at the online clothes mending guides.
Did you know that families in England spent an average of £16.80 a week on buying new clothes, but only 20 p on hire, haberdashery or repair? Keep Britain Tidy, Buy Nothing New Month.
So get out there and enjoy exploring the treasures waiting for you in charity shops and second hand shops. Find a shop with the Charity Retail association. You will find unique clothing and contributing to a more sustainable world. Plus buying from charity shops, you will also be raising money for a good cause.
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