By Marianne Graff July 15,2025
Photo Credit: Thirdman by Pexels
DONATING TO GOODWILL IS NOT ACTUALLY GOOD FOR THE PLANET (THERE ARE BETTER ALTERNATIVES)
If you are like me, you feel a satisfied warm fuzzy when you put clothing you no longer need itno a donation bin or send it to a recycling centre.
But I just discovered the whole ‘recycling clothing’ industry is not at all eco-friendly, or efficient. Hardly any clothing is actually re-used or recycled, it turns out.
I had no idea how complicated and resource intensive the second hand, or ‘used clothing’ industry was, and how it hardly counts as ‘eco friendly’ when you look at the big picture.
Photo credit: screenshot from “How ThredUp Resells 17 Million Garments Every Year”
I found out about this by watching this excellent video about ThredUp, by Business Insider which starts by explaining the innovative practises of Thread Up and how they are trying to be more eco friendly by providing a convenient platform to procure and shop for second hand apparel.
I am not faulting ThredUp. In fact, their use of AI systems is clever and efficient and makes working for Thread Up far more humane while helping find secondary (and teritary) markets for used clothing. But this video was very revealing about how resource intensive it is to re-sell clothing and how inefficient, in many ways.
It was fascinating to see the inner workings of Thread Up centres. The video walks through the process of their clean up centres, and the work involved with unpacking, inspecting, categorizing, sorting, measuring, taking photos from al angles, and adding a QR code before an item is hung up on the massive 100 000 meter long conveyor belt of hanging clothes that is constantly moving to bring items requested forward to where a human can pluck it off the hanger rack and ship it out to its next owner. Impressive, no doubt about it. The AI tools for choosing something similar to what you already own (photo matching) and AI suggestions for what would make a nice outfit for you based on what they have in stock and your preferences is sheer brilliance. That’s exactly the level of service I want when I walk into a real store, with the added convenience of being able to do this instantly, from home.
What was so eye-popping and disturbing was the detailed explanation of what happens to the 75% of the clothing that Thread Up doesn’t manage to sell.
After something is pulled off the hanger rack and deemed unsellable by Thread up, it is packed into bales and sold in bulk to third party companies. Many of these are in Pakistan or Chile or other countries around the world specializing in second hand trade. There is a huge second hand market in Africa, for example. What doesn’t sell here is packed into bales again and transported to landfills.
What can we do as conscientious consumers to reduce the terrible waste of resources associated with worldwide shipping to second hand centres in Pakistan, Africa, Chile and other developing , the water and chemicals involved with making clothing into new clothing or into something else entirely, and the effort and cost , both financially and environmentally, of dumping unwanted and unusable clothing into a landfill?
Other news reports such as this one by BBC news place the number of dumped and buried clothing much higher, stating that 95% of all clothing made winds up in landfills to be burned or buried.
It’s so crazy to think that a cheap quality piece of clothing you don’t want or have used enough that you want to get rid of it and get something new that you donate to Goodwill could most likely be packed up and shipped to a different country, and then packed up again to be shipped to a different centre for repurposing or dumped in a landfill or the ocean. A cheap T Shirt will have traveled the world more than most people living in Canada!
What a waste of time, fuel and human effort in packing shipping, transporting, sorting, washing, re-selling, packing, and transporting to a dump.
Since donating to Goodwill and Women’s Shelters is not as helpful to women or as eco-frendly as you might think, based on the research I have just done, what else can we do differently that will still help people and that doesn’t damage the environment?
We have options.
So, what are the alternatives?
Here are my ideas
- Buy made to order clothing using sustainable fabrics instead of cheap clothing.
By doing this, we shorten the supply chain. Like the Farm to Fork movement, this approach supports and develops local clothing makers and support small home based tailors or Etsy sellers.
By going direct to clothing makers to get a tailored experience, you can get clothing you like that fits you perfectly.This reduces the need to discard unwanted clothing or the need to get rid of clothing because it doesn’t fit properly. It also circumvents the ridiculous idea of mass producing one thing in multiple sizes and colours ‘ hoping’ someone will buy them all, which creates a huge amount of waste.
2. Make the effort to find and buy truly sustainable fabrics.
Using sustainable materials such as hemp cloth, organic cotton, linen and wool, makes a big difference to your body and the planet. These fabrics are ‘high frequency’, and they feel better than synthetic fabrics. They also do not cause allergic reactions like synthetic materials, and for children who are sensitive and ‘on the spectrum’, they are ideal because of their textures and the soothing effects on the human nervous system. I have witnessed this personally in a number of children, who calmed down remarkably simply by changing out of their uncomfortable school uniform into clothing made of natural materials. Sleeping in linen or organic cotton sheets has a similarly soothing effect.
Sustainable clothing contains less chemicals and can be composted more quickly. For example, 100% Hemp cloth, once composted, breaks down 100% in 90 days or less. It creates compost that looks like soil that can be used on gardens and in agricultural processes without worry of adding toxins into the soil and your food supply. Organic cotton cloth breaks down within months, not years. Some synthetic fabrics simply don’t break down, unless shredded and chemicals are added.
Where can you find sustainable clothing and fabric to make clothes?
If you are in a small rural area and nobody has clothes making skills in your area, and don’t want to use Etsy, try ordering from the online stores listed in this excellent article about made to order clothing. The brands they profile in this article do not cost any more than typical retail stores, I noticed. Check out Kotn (Canadian, yay!) , Son de Flor, We Are Kin, eShakti, Mila. Vert for knitwear, Pamut Apparel ( great for custom sized clothing), Threat+ Sprout (artistic and fun styles) or Maison Chloe for custom made dresses and ‘high couteur’ pieces made with fabric from surplus fabrics from French couture houses.
3.Change the ‘Donation Supply Chain’ Dynamics and Keep Things Local
A lot of the unwanted and donated clothing that finds its way into landfills and the ocean could be avoided if we kept things local instead of rely on outsourcing to other countries for allegedly ‘cheaper’ solutions to our waste problems.
Find people locally who need your clothing and forget trying to get money for it.
Make your own ‘Goodwill’ system.
I believe the barter and trade and ‘free cycle’ systems in local communities is valuable in more ways than financial savings they offer.
In Canada, it’s very common to get into ‘hand-me’down’ chains through friends, moms groups, family and relatives or apps like Nextdoor.com. What goes around, comes around, in my experience, in terms of recieving something else of great value to you for free from some unexpected source after giving away something of value out of the goodness of your heart.
Free stores. In some places, such as Upper New York State, there are successful examples of ‘free stores’ that keep the doors open and the lights on and the place cleaned by asking for donations in a box by the door instead of charging for things. The store has racks where people put things they don’t want anymore but think others could use. In some places they are rewarded with ‘community bucks’ that can be redeemed at local businesses. In other places the fact that you can take what you want for free is enough incentive.
Since no money is exchanged and you don’t have to worry about anyone stealing anything, it has far lower staffing costs than typical retail stores. Here is an example of a successful store and how to start one.
Free cycling can pave the way for innovative uses for things that the original owner never thought of. Which leads into my next idea: upcycling.
4. Change What You Do with Old Clothing
Screenshot from the video How To Weave Rug Using Old Jeans by Lena Brit Artist
Instead of sending second hand and unwanted clothing to Goodwill, where the unsold clothing is bundled in bales to be shipped around the world to second hand clothing centers elsewhere, why not do something different with the old clothes? Some call this upcycling. Sometimes a piece of fabric has as much value, or increased value, when used as something the item was not initially intended for. Check out the lovely handmade denim rug in the photo above. This extends the usefulness of denim for years.
Use old clothing to make something else of value and beauty.
Cloth Shopping Bags: You can use old jean and pant legs to make shopping bags.Use the sleeves or pantlegs to make plastic bag holders and dispensers. Here is another one showing a method that uses old pant legs or sleeves, elastic cut to size and a sewing machine, instead of hand stitching a cut pantleg of jeans and handsticking around a hairband.
Yarn: use thin strips of ripped fabric to make yarn that can be woven into other projects (rugs, blankets, work shirts, simple dresses).
Rope: Here is how to use different types of unwanted clothing fabrics to make rope.
Rugs: People with pioneer grandparents and farm family roots will probably recognize this idea: using old jeans and sturdy quality cotton to make rag rugs.
Jean rag rug. Screenshot from the video How To Weave Rug Using Old Jeans by Lena Brit Artist
The rag rug above uses strips made from old jeans. Other rag rugs are spiral in design and use all sorts of fabrics as the braid used to coil up and sew together to make a rug.
Patchwork Quilts, pot holders, curtains and bedspreads: And of course, many reading this may remember old quilts made by their grandmothers or community groups who gift handmade quilts made in quilting bees. The hospital where my mother underwent chemotherapy gave all cancer patients a soft, handmade little quilt in a gesture of kindness that gave an enormous amount of comfort to my mother and other cancer survivors.
Did you know that wool can be used as fertilizer, with great results?
In Australia and around the world gardeners have reported great success at eliminating slugs and pests and increasing the amount and quality of their fruit harvests by 30% or more by draping wool around the base stems and even over the flowering branches of orchard trees. Seeing strands of wool all around plants in a garden in the middle of summer reminds me of a freak snowstorm situation, but the results from many gardeners proves this is a viable and efficient and natural solution that improves plant production.
Australians pioneered wool pellets are fertilizer that many people are reporting are giving them great results such as the Hobby Homestead. Apparently there is a noticeable smell the first week or two after putting them in the soil, but after that the smell dissipates and the harvests were more abundant and had no sign of pests.
I did an article about this recently. Links to videos reporting the scientific results of the soil tests are mentioned in this video.
Hemp is truly amazing and I think more people need to be aware of this and ask for it and buy it to support the transition to a hemp based economy.
Of course, a lot of these options are not appealing to busy people who are not crafty. They are not convenient enough.
But there are lots of people in every community that do have the skills you lack. Often old people remember how to fix things and would be happy to help if asked.
6. Bring back the idea of mending clothing.
If we had communities that included share centres and fix it workshop days, I think it would bring out the best in people that is often overlooked, Sometimes these skills can be found through ‘time and talent’ systems that are used in some intentional communities, such as those linked to the ‘hOur World’ software program for managing time and talent trades. If we invested more in our clothing and had pieces we wanted to keep wearing, we would not created as much waste.
In my opinion, we need to re-think our clothing habits and customs.
After a couple of hard years financially, I have come to realize how little clothing a person actually needs, especially if you buy decent quality items that are multipurpose in the first place.And the value of buying classic, quality pieces that can be refurbished and used for years, not just one season.
We need to do the opposite of ‘fast fashion’ and mall shopping and return to ‘slow fashion’ and custom made items using sustainable, quality fabrics that last.
And we need to think of what we can do to re-purpose and use locally, all the things we can no longer wear.
It is madness to outsource our waste problems to other countries or keep packing garbage and ‘probolems’ into landfills, or dumping them in the sea or trying to hide them in deserts like the Atacama in Chile, hoping they will decompose on their own.