Inside the charity shop crisis: What really happens to your donated clothes

Charity shops are viewed in paradoxical ways; for some a lifeline for affordable secondhand clothing, a way of raising money for key causes and a handy place to drop the stuff we no longer want. Equally, they are often regarded as a blight on the high street, emblems of decline and dissatisfaction. It’s unusual for anyone to speak of withering town centres without using charity shops as an example of the sadness at the core of a struggling area.But what is missed is that they have unwittingly become the de facto first port of call for a tsunami of clothing waste. Without them, even more of our “stuff” would head straight to landfill. They provide a critical service in recirculating the fabric fruits of our gluttonous shopping habits.Its volunteers are the first hands to sort through the expelled in a convoluted chain which extends across the globe. You would not presume that private equity gains from our donated clothes. You would hope that it wasn’t your old jumpers clogging up beaches in Ghana. “You never forget the first piece of worn underwear you have to unpack,” says Tansy Hoskins, author of Charity Shop World, a starkly compelling investigation into what really happens to the bags-for-life we donate. It is a book which anyone who has ever bought clothes should read. Now anything worth something is probably being flogged on Vinted, leaving charity shops with our fashion dregsAs research, Hoskins spent a year working in an undisclosed charity shop in London. Clothes were donated by the sack full, often stained or damaged, single worn out shoes, broken plastic toys. As a volunteer the shift work is hard graft, pulling out what’s saleable and piling up what isn’t to be sold off to rag “recycling” companies. The amount paid for ragbags has been steadily decreasing, alongside the slide in the quality of our clothing. While once there were plenty of proverbial diamonds in the rough, now anything worth something is probably being flogged on Vinted, leaving charity shops with our fashion dregs.“From the first day,” Hoskins recalls, “the amount of stuff was astonishing. It’s overwhelming. I was amazed by what horrible condition much of it is in and how physically draining the work is. Those bags of textile waste are really heavy.” She found the experience relentless and emotionally exhausting. “Everyone has that horrible junk drawer in your house that you don’t want to face. It was like facing that over and over again.” ‘Recycled’ to Africa The global fashion industry produces about 100 billion items each year. The exact figure is uncertain because brands have no responsibility to publish how much they are making; indeed they ignore repeating appeals to do so. At the other end, 92 million tonnes of textile waste are produced annually. Data from the United Nations Environment Programme shows the fashion industry contributes to about 10 per cent of global carbon emissions and that it is on course to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by over 50 per cent by 2030. And yet, creative directors of fast fashion brands are now talking — with no irony — about what different types of polyester clothing they should create in order to serve the public battling unpredictable weather systems brought on by climate change. With the mountains of donations, there is no time for volunteers to clean or fix items. Most of the job is spent clearing the piles, steaming and pricing stock to go out, to come back and do it all again. Perhaps a pair of boots in good condition are donated, but caked in mud. They go straight into the ragbag. Hoskins’s first realisation was that the clothes she was sorting would end up being sent abroad. She asked the men from the “recycling” company what happened to it. First, it’s taken to a warehouse where items are sorted into summer and winter. Summer clothes are sent to Jordan and Africa; winter clothes to Nepal and Poland. Fast fashion waste at landfill Getty ImagesHere they are sold on to secondhand retailers and markets who buy the clothes in the baleful. As Hoskins points out in her book, dirty, unwearable clothes don’t change once they travel to somewhere else. She writes that “stallholders [in Ghana] who have paid for bales are forced to throw much of their contents away. Often these clothes end up in informal dumping sites… and inevitably spill over to pollute the waterways.”Hoskins cites a report from Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee which estimated that 30 per cent of worn clothes are resold in the UK and the rest go overseas. From 2023 World Bank statistics, the UK is the fourth biggest exporter of worn clothes. She dug into who owns the so-called recycling companies, who don’t recycle anything but instead ship it abroad where it is sold on. She uncovered a convoluted empire of holding companies and private equity until she traced the ultimate benefactor of these UK-based used clothing collectors as Prince Hans-Adam II, Liechtenstein’s reigning monarch, who has an estimated wealth of £11 billion. Although owning the recycling companies does not necessarily mean that Prince Hans-Adam II has any involvement in investment or management decisions, or that he has invested any of his own money.Countries in the Global South are buckling under the weight of our old clothesOther revelations cast an uneasy eye over who is using charity shops and to whose benefit. High street retailers, laden with over-production, sometimes give unsold “dead” stock to charities. Hoskins calls it “Zara sludge”, which she notes is often priced higher than the donated clothing. There is an incentive to brands off-loading to charity shops; the value of donations is tax deductible.Countries in the Global South are buckling under the weight of our old clothes; the intensive toil of dealing with imported textile waste ensures that they are unable to develop their own fashion industry. The toxicity of the plastic within much of fast fashion (and higher end) products means that landfill sites and places where these clothes end up being burned bleeds out acrid, noxious air and microplastics into the soil and sea. Last week, Hackney Children & Baby Bank posted pictures of piles of bags on their Instagram account after a busy drop-off day, announcing that they were pausing donation appointments. While hugely grateful for clean items in good condition, they experience similar issues to the overstuffed charity shops, underscoring just how many things already exist in the world and the unseen bodies which sort them out for us. Tansy E Hoskins is the author of arity Shop WorldTansy E HoskinsJulia Thackray, chair of trustees, says, “It’s very unpredictable. After there’s been a holiday or a break we often get a big load because people have had time to tidy up; in the new year you’ll get a surge.” They put out clear messaging on what they need and want, items you’d be pleased to pass onto a friend. “It’s not a jumble sale. It’s a question of dignity as well as need for the families who come to us. Equally, given the amount of items donated, they don’t need to give out stained or holey things, there are more than enough good quality items to go around. Some are fantastic. People will have taped down jigsaws with masking tape, then others have tipped a toy box into a bin liner, and you’re like, holy moly, what’s in here?” Inevitably, broken toys and larger items such as buggies which don’t function mean that the volunteers end up taking trips to the dump. “The risk is that you get a lot of stuff you can’t use, and you’re just performing a waste disposal service for people who could have taken things to the tip themselves.” The search for a better solutionWhat stands out for Thackray is the inequality of belongings. “People often say when they bring things, particularly for young babies [its] because they’ve had a lot of gifts. They’ll say, ‘We’ve just got too much.’ Lots of us have way more than necessary, and then others just don’t have the basics.” Recipients don’t have to be on benefits, often it’s the struggling single parent who can’t stretch to clothes and shoes. “Some families are in shared hotel rooms or really small flats,” says Thackray. They create clothing packs for children up to age 12, each filled with enough items for one week’s worth of outfits. As with charity shops, it is the army of volunteers who are helping to keep our old things in circulation, which is the best outcome.The longer clothes are in use and in this country, the lower the environmental impact. Hoskins is passionate that charity shops perform an essential service (not to mention around £387 million they raise annually). But they are an overlooked cog in the silent textile waste swamp which desperately needs support. In a perfect world, Hoskins suggests, there would be repair cafés and laundries next to charity shops, which we should fight to save and protect. 9,900 charity shops in the UK24,900 Paid employees work in charity shops223,500 Number of volunteers working in charity shops in the UK100bn items The fashion industry produces each year92m tonnes of textile waste produced annually30% proportion of worn clothes resold in UK; the rest go overseas4th The UK is the fourth biggest exporter of secondhand clothes “It would be a lot worse without charity shops,” she says. “There needs to be investment into how we manage waste sustainably and ethically in this country, and building an infrastructure so that it’s not just retirees and volunteers having to tackle the waste stream.” She’s convinced we “can increase the amount of stuff that gets reused within our communities.” At the moment the solution to what to do with worn out, stained clothing is unsatisfactory. “There isn’t a perfect answer,” says Hoskins. Repair and reuse is the goal, you can downcycle items into cleaning cloths, “but there’s only so many of them you need”. You should never put textiles in the actual bin; Hoskins says to bag them up separately and mark them as rag for charity shops (they can at least get a small amount of money). There is some progress. The EU has recently passed legislation that holds brands responsible for their textile waste and will make it illegal for them to destroy unsold clothing, with a goal to stem overproduction. Ideally there should be pressure for them to make better quality items, ones that would last beyond a season. A fantasy utopia of stronger seams, zips and fabrics, created by women being paid ethically, too. Until then, it’s upon us to take responsibility for the stuff we buy but then decide to expel.