Seriously, What Are You Supposed to Do With Old Clothes? - The Atlantic

“About 80 percent of that stuff that’s donated there isn’t getting sold” to the general public, Bédat said. “They will end up either selling the stuff for rags, throwing it out, or bundling it for onward sale to largely the global South, or if it’s winter clothes, Eastern Europe.” In theory, clothing that is exported will be resold to new customers in low-income countries, but what happens to any particular lot of secondhand clothing once it’s out of the country is difficult for industry watchdogs to trace. There’s good reason to believe that much of what started out as charitable donations will nonetheless end up in the garbage: Countries that accept large amounts of secondhand textile imports from the U.S., such as Ghana and Chile, now have enormous textile-waste problems of their own. In an industry so rife with excess, the good intentions of individuals can’t get anyone very far...

 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/08/what-to-do-with-old-clothing-donation-waste/671043/