Why make donations of clothing, and what happens to your clothes donations? Read on to learn all about it:
Donations of Clothing are Effective Recycling
Clothes that are donated don’t end up in landfills, creating greenhouse gases as they decompose without enough oxygen. In 2006, Americans bought 2.5 billion pounds of fabric in the form of used clothing, which kept that much out of landfills. But we’re still only recycling or looking for donations for about 15% of our used clothes. When you make a clothing donation, about 45% of that is worn by someone, but the rest doesn’t go to waste. Nearly 100% of clothes and home textiles are able to be recycled, no matter what their condition, and many are shredded to provide low cost stuffing for pillows and upholstery.
Donations of Clothing Help the Needy
Some donations will go directly to needy and homeless families. Others will be sold at a discount that provides the poor with quality clothes at prices they can afford, while also making money for the charity foundations that sell them. Those funds are used to help charities provide emergency food, water, blankets, blood, and shelter. And some donated products go abroad,
where they provide cheap clothing for the needy, as well as jobs in sorting and processing for people in developing nations. About 14.3 million tons of American textiles are donated abroad every year.
Donations of Clothing are A Tax Break
Donations can be written off on taxes, and it is often worth doing so. A man’s suit or an overcoat, for example, can be worth as much as $60 in a write off. It’s also possible to get a write off for other home items, as well, such as a coffee maker, which can be worth from $4 to $15. It is important, however, to remember that any donation worth more than $250 must have to be accompanied by a receipt in order to write off on taxes.
Donations of Clothing are a Way to Raise Awareness
Most people on social media, a full 70% in fact, say that they would take action in response to a friend’s post about having made a donation to charity. This is especially true during the holidays, when about 43% of people are more willing to give than at any other time.
Donations of Clothing are a Way to Unclutter Your Life
Americans are buying twice as many articles of clothing, on average, than they were even 20 years ago. Nearly all of us have clothes that we know we’re not going to wear again. We’ve outgrown them or replaced with them something else; we’ve moved to a different style, or simply grown tired of them. Rather than let these clothes hang around taking up space, and certainly rather than dumping them in landfills, we could be arranging a donation pickup of our used items and reclaiming that space.
People in the United States throw away about 70 pounds of clothes and other textiles per person, per year. You don’t have to be one of those people. Arrange for your old clothes to go to someone in need, free up living space, get a tax write off, and do your part to help the environment.
