Inside the charity shop crisis: What really happens to your donated clothes
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What → happen → clothes
As charity shops become a dumping ground for fashion waste, much of which ends up blighting African beaches, private equity is benefiting from the system
As the heatwave raged over the summer, so did headlines spelling doom for charity shops.
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headlines → become → shops
The British Heart Foundation announced that it would close 150 shops by March 2028, while Cancer Research will shut down almost 200 stores by April 2027 with plans to open 12 out-of-town ‘superstores’ across the country.
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Research → announce → country
Few made the environmental connection.
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Few → make → connection
Charity shops are viewed in paradoxical ways; for some a lifeline for affordable secondhand clothing, a way of raising money for key causes and a handy place to drop the stuff we no longer want.
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we → view → stuff
Equally, they are often regarded as a blight on the high street, emblems of decline and dissatisfaction.
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they → regard → decline
It’s unusual for anyone to speak of withering town centres without using charity shops as an example of the sadness at the core of a struggling area.
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anyone → ’ → area
But what is missed is that they have unwittingly become the de facto first port of call for a tsunami of clothing waste.
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they → miss → waste
Without them, even more of our “stuff” would head straight to landfill.
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more → head → landfill
They provide a critical service in recirculating the fabric fruits of our gluttonous shopping habits.
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They → provide → habits
Its volunteers are the first hands to sort through the expelled in a convoluted chain which extends across the globe.
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which → sort → globe
You would not presume that private equity gains from our donated clothes.
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equity → presume → clothes
You would hope that it wasn’t your old jumpers clogging up beaches in Ghana.
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jumpers → hope → Ghana
“You never forget the first piece of worn underwear you have to unpack,” says Tansy Hoskins, author of Charity Shop World, a starkly compelling investigation into what really happens to the bags-for-life we donate.
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we → forget → life
It is a book which anyone who has ever bought clothes should read.
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who → buy → clothes
Now anything worth something is probably being flogged on Vinted, leaving charity shops with our fashion dregs
As research, Hoskins spent a year working in an undisclosed charity shop in London.
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Hoskins → flog → London
Clothes were donated by the sack full, often stained or damaged, single worn out shoes, broken plastic toys.
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Clothes → donate → shoes
As a volunteer the shift work is hard graft, pulling out what’s saleable and piling up what isn’t to be sold off to rag “recycling” companies.
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what → pull → companies
The amount paid for ragbags has been steadily decreasing, alongside the slide in the quality of our clothing.
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amount → pay → clothing
While once there were plenty of proverbial diamonds in the rough, now anything worth something is probably being flogged on Vinted, leaving charity shops with our fashion dregs.
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anything → be → dregs
“From the first day,” Hoskins recalls, “the amount of stuff was astonishing.
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amount → recall → stuff
It’s overwhelming.
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It → ’ → ?
She found the experience relentless and emotionally exhausting.
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experience → find → ?
“Everyone has that horrible junk drawer in your house that you don’t want to face.
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you → have → that
It was like facing that over and over again.
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It → face → that
The global fashion industry produces about 100 billion items each year.
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industry → produce → items
The exact figure is uncertain because brands have no responsibility to publish how much they are making; indeed they ignore repeating appeals to do so.
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they → have → appeals
At the other end, 92 million tonnes of textile waste are produced annually.
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tonnes → produce → waste
Data from the United Nations Environment Programme shows the fashion industry contributes to about 10 per cent of global carbon emissions and that it is on course to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by over 50 per cent by 2030.
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it → show → 2030
And yet, creative directors of fast fashion brands are now talking — with no irony — about what different types of polyester clothing they should create in order to serve the public battling unpredictable weather systems brought on by climate change.
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they → talk → change
With the mountains of donations, there is no time for volunteers to clean or fix items.
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volunteers → be → items
Most of the job is spent clearing the piles, steaming and pricing stock to go out, to come back and do it all again.
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Most → spend → it
Perhaps a pair of boots in good condition are donated, but caked in mud.
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pair → donate → mud
They go straight into the ragbag.
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They → go → ragbag
Hoskins’s first realisation was that the clothes she was sorting would end up being sent abroad.
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she → sort → ?
She asked the men from the “recycling” company what happened to it.
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what → ask → it
First, it’s taken to a warehouse where items are sorted into summer and winter.
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items → take → summer
Summer clothes are sent to Jordan and Africa; winter clothes to Nepal and Poland.
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clothes → send → Nepal
Here they are sold on to secondhand retailers and markets who buy the clothes in the baleful.
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who → sell → baleful
As Hoskins points out in her book, dirty, unwearable clothes don’t change once they travel to somewhere else.
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they → point → book
…and 47 more, not listed.
The Aporia
