Live data from Hacker News

What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

theatlantic.com

11–20 of 181 posts

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#11
post #7

All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need. Since I've found this in every country I've lived, I thought this was ubiquitous in the modern world. Am I maybe blinded by my experience here?

There are many such boxes around here. Almost all of them are operated by for-profit cults.

I knew the Canadian Diabetes Association was a front for big insulin, and this confirms it!

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#12

All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need. Since I've found this in every country I've lived, I thought this was ubiquitous in the modern world. Am I maybe blinded by my experience here?

> All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need [..]

Q1: To which people?

Q2: As a 'donor', how is one supposed to be able to determine what actually happens after your throw your clothes in the box?

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#13

I wear old clothes when doing yard work or woodworking or metalworking --- by the time I'm done, they're only suited to be cut up for rags, and I have a jar which I clip the buttons into --- if a zipper is YKK and still in good condition I'll cut around it in case I need to replace a zipper on something. I've tried to convince my wife to take up quilting, but she has zero interest, and I don't have the time.

Nice clothes -> Gym clothes / shop clothes -> sleepwear -> rags (can spend years here) -> trash

I've got trashbags full of old sheets and t-shirts, and they're so useful for random straining, cleanup, covering tools, degreasing, painting, etc.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#14

A Lot of clothing donation bins are for profit companies that sell the clothing for furniture stuffing. Check out “Clothing Poverty” about the horrible problem the clothing donation industry has been. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/clothing-poverty-the-hidden-wo... Also great episode of Tiny Spark on clothing donation waste. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/clothing-poverty-andrew-brook...

In Canada, furniture pillows always come with a New Material Only tag, indicating that recycled textiles have not been used. I assume this is regulated and has been in place since the dawn of time.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#15

I presume polyester or blends could be disposed of via pyrolysis and converted back into oil. Or simply burned for energy. Interestingly, H&M has collected 140,000 tonnes of textiles through an in-store recycling program so far, and they upcycle but also work with a company called Renewcell to generate new fibers from cotton waste. I'm not sure what they do with the rest of the bulk textile but I presume it's burned…

Sometimes discarded cotton clothing goes to making rag paper[1], which is a good quality paper for archival and such.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_paper

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#17

All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need. Since I've found this in every country I've lived, I thought this was ubiquitous in the modern world. Am I maybe blinded by my experience here?

> All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need [..] Q1: To which people? Q2: As a 'donor', how is one supposed to be able to determine what actually happens after your throw your clothes in the box?

When helping hurts, the best recycling of old fabrics to avoid economic reprecussions is probably for insulation or us dollars.

Most of the big name donation centers (GoodWill) will have this setup for their waste product.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#18

All the countries I've lived in during my life (4) have had various types of "boxes" on the street where you can dump clothes, which subsequently gets donated to various organizations that handles giving clothes to people in need. Since I've found this in every country I've lived, I thought this was ubiquitous in the modern world. Am I maybe blinded by my experience here?

They don't want your old clothes, they want your semi-fresh ones.

Re: What are you supposed to do with old clothes?

#20

A Lot of clothing donation bins are for profit companies that sell the clothing for furniture stuffing. Check out “Clothing Poverty” about the horrible problem the clothing donation industry has been. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/clothing-poverty-the-hidden-wo... Also great episode of Tiny Spark on clothing donation waste. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/clothing-poverty-andrew-brook...

> sell the clothing for furniture stuffing.

What's wrong with this? Seems like perfect recycling.

Post reply on HN