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Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

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Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#141

Post by tablespoon »

JamesSwift wrote: post #99
dylan604 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone e…

For myself, I tend to be in the "let the professionals decide what to scrap" camp. If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? As the OP says, they have various uses for items, so it makes sense to let them handle the sorting through of junk to decide what is ultimately landfill material. Sure,…

> If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage?

Because a lot of the organizations that take donated items are charities, and disposing of your garbage costs them money that they then cannot use to do good.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/993821945/goodwill-doesnt-wan...

It's the same thing with recycling. If you "hopefully" put unrecyclable stuff in with it, all you're doing is making recycling less economically viable and increasing the chance that the batch is ruined. The sorters only have the capacity to imperfectly remove the most obviously unrecyclable trash (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sYHe3jdGA), not to ponder if your yogurt container is made of the right kind of plastic or determining if every wrapper is food-stained or not. The contents of your entire recycling bin flies past their eyes in a literal second or two.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#142

Post by mumblemumble »

giantrobot wrote: post #131
mumblemumble wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's something there, but I do have a hard time lining those theories up with my past interactions around the subject. For example, a long time ago a roommate of mine wanted to get rid of some furniture, so he had a thrift store send a van to pick it up. It had all been pretty severely damaged by his dog. Having previously worked at a thrift store, I was pretty confident that they wouldn…

> Her bias is, she wants to hold on to even the slightest glimmer of hope that someone might find a use for an item. I have this same problem. It's actually taken me a lot of effort over the years to get away from this mindset. Not that I try to be wasteful, it's more of just forcing myself to be realistic about the likelihood of me being able to repurpose a thing. Sure a thing might be useful to someone but unless I…

I'm finding that I get a lot more utility out of framing it thus: the trash isn't created when I put it in the bin, the trash is created when I buy it in the first place. Once that happens, it's going to get pitched. Could be today, could be in 30 years, but someday it will happen.

Where that pays extra dividends is in limiting the accumulation of clutter. I used to buy electronic gizmos I didn't, strictly speaking, need, at a fairly regular pace. But I was storing up a bunch of crap I'd eventually have to throw away the next time I declutter. And I had a lot of clutter. Reminding myself that every consumer product is future trash helps limit the accumulation of clutter, which, in turn, limits how often I have to feel bad about throwing it away.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#143

Post by KillahBhyte »

mumblemumble wrote: post #109
KillahBhyte wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something ever seems like a popular but illogical set of actions by people, the best way to understand it is to look at the incentives that drive it (thanks Freakonomics). In this case I'd wager two things. As a kid I had family who worked a receiving center for Goodwill. Fairly affluent part of our town near the beach. I remember two distinct things being odd to me then. The items people would bring would sometim…

I wouldn't be surprised if there's something there, but I do have a hard time lining those theories up with my past interactions around the subject. For example, a long time ago a roommate of mine wanted to get rid of some furniture, so he had a thrift store send a van to pick it up. It had all been pretty severely damaged by his dog. Having previously worked at a thrift store, I was pretty confident that they wouldn…

I can get on board with this, too. Hoarders are kind of the far end of that spectrum and I can see the same closer to home tendencies in my partner as well. She struggles to dispose of clearly broken beyond repair or reuse items.

Difference in perspective down to cultural bias. Living too long in rural southern US has jaded me into looking for selfish intent behind any altruistic curtains.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#145

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mumblemumble wrote: post #109
KillahBhyte wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something ever seems like a popular but illogical set of actions by people, the best way to understand it is to look at the incentives that drive it (thanks Freakonomics). In this case I'd wager two things. As a kid I had family who worked a receiving center for Goodwill. Fairly affluent part of our town near the beach. I remember two distinct things being odd to me then. The items people would bring would sometim…

I wouldn't be surprised if there's something there, but I do have a hard time lining those theories up with my past interactions around the subject. For example, a long time ago a roommate of mine wanted to get rid of some furniture, so he had a thrift store send a van to pick it up. It had all been pretty severely damaged by his dog. Having previously worked at a thrift store, I was pretty confident that they wouldn…

The big question here is how to minimize transaction costs.

You often have an item which in good condition would be worth e.g. $55, but it's damaged. If you ask someone how much they need to repair it, they say $50. So in a frictionless plane you would make $5.

But in order to pay them, you would have to fill out tax paperwork, and they would have to fill out tax paperwork, and you would have to pay payroll tax, and they would have to pay income tax, and in the end you would pay $60 and they would receive $30. So instead you throw the item away.

Whereas what you should do instead is to just give it to them. They were willing to fix the item for what in practice was $30. If you gave it to them, they would do the labor they valued at $30, or at $25 because they can omit the labor of doing the tax paperwork, and then they have a $55 item instead of the item going into a landfill.

There are also people who might be willing to use the item as-is without repairing it, if it was free.

So the real problem here is that these organizations aren't allowing people to pick through what they're throwing out. Which wouldn't make them any money, but it would be better for the world.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#146

Post by Sammi »

SeasonalEnnui wrote: post #136

After wearing my t-shirts to the point of being thread-bare or irrevocably stained (3-10 years), they become excellent lint-free rags for the electronics workbench & garage/workshop. The front and back panels of the t-shirt can be easily segmented into the desired size of rag (credit card sized for electronics, hand sized for the garage).

They're also excellent for window cleaning. Just wash the window with a wet old clothing rag and dry it with a dry one afterwards. It works so well. Much faster than any cleaning products and it leaves no residue.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#147

Post by deft »

These kinds of donation initiatives drive me mad. If they didn't exist, I'd throw these clothes my partner insists on donating in the trash. Why would I send garbage to someone else as a donation??! The fact the donation receivers just ship them to a foreign landill proves my point. I'll keep it local :).

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#148

Post by lotsofpulp »

rhino369 wrote: post #103
mumblemumble wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to what others have said, I think that a lot of people have this idea that "trash = bad" so deeply internalized that they're heavily biased toward only putting things in the bin when there can be no doubt whatsoever that it is garbage. You also see this when people put greasy paper take-out food containers in the recycling. No, it's not recyclable, and worse, it might further contaminate other things and rende…

Recycling education is awful in America. I made it about 33 years without hearing that take out containers, etc. can’t be recycled.

It also recently came out that much of the recyclable recycling was and/or is not being recycled anyway, so I doubt any education would have made a difference. I assume all the recycling efforts are simply for political purposes at this point.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#149

Post by qqqwerty »

JamesSwift wrote: post #99
dylan604 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone e…

For myself, I tend to be in the "let the professionals decide what to scrap" camp. If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? As the OP says, they have various uses for items, so it makes sense to let them handle the sorting through of junk to decide what is ultimately landfill material. Sure,…

You are making it harder for recycling to be profitable/worthwhile. Sorting the material and disposing the trash is one of the biggest costs associated with recycling. If the inputs to the processes get too saturated with waste, the recycling process stops being a net positive to society. As an example posted elsewhere in this thread, a soiled food container is not only non-recyclable, it will contaminate the other material next to it also making those materials non-recyclable.

Basically, if you think you are being a good steward of the earth by throwing your trash into the recycling bin, you are wrong, you are making the problem worse.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environm...

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#150

Post by kube-system »

dylan604 wrote: post #71
gambiting wrote: post #53

We run a processing company for second hand clothing in Poland(as well as our own shops), and while I can't comment on exports to Africa or elsewhere, that's definitely not the case for us. Primarly because we try to make use of absolutely everything we import, but also because few years back certain legislations were introduced that basically prevent companies like ours from producing large amounts of waste, with dr…

>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone e…

It's cognitive bias. It might be junk, but it's their junk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_ownership_effect

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