What happens to the clothes you donate to charity clothing bins?

As the UK’s clothing poverty continues to rise and worsen, our work here at The Clothing Bank has grown at an extraordinary rate – just 5 years on from our 2020 founding.

In that time, our eyes have been opened to the reality of clothing waste in the UK, and how charity clothing bins are actually often not sending clothes to the places donors had in mind.

Most of the clothes you donate aren’t recircled locally

Or anywhere across the UK, for that matter.

Around the world, we make around 62 million tons of new clothing, equating to about 80-150 billion individual garments… to clothe 8 billion people.

Every. Single. Year.

The world simply just produces more clothing than it needs, or can handle. This causes charity clothing bins, retail warehouses and landfill sites to be flooded with unwanted clothes.

Of the clothes donated to charity shops, only 10 to 30% of them are sold in-store, with the rest often being donated or sold overseas.

Your local clothing bank bins are often deceivingly owned or leased by private, for-profit organisations, such as recycling companies. The charities advertised on the bins themselves do this because  it is more profitable for their cause to earn money by selling clothing donations to recycling companies, rather than selling or using the donations in their own shops. This leads to many of the clothes donated to these bins ending up resold to developing countries, or sent to landfill. 

The reality is that most of the clothes we donate, unfortunately, aren’t recycled material-to-material (turned into new recycled clothes).

Overseas clothing donations: More harm than good

A lot of the clothes that we put into our local clothing bank bins are sent overseas, rather than being redistributed to the communities in need here in the UK.

Whilst it might sound like a good thing to send unwanted clothes to developing countries, over the years it has led the local fashion and clothing industries in, for example, West Africa, to collapse.

Unable to compete with the cheap price of our cast-off clothes, the textile factories in these developing countries have had to close down, leading to a lack of jobs and opportunities for the local communities and economies to prosper.

Having sent our unwanted clothes to developing countries for decades, too, there’s also the argument that they don’t even need them anymore. Of the donated clothes that arrive in these countries, some are sold locally, whilst the rest eventually go to landfill.

So how can you ensure that your second-hand clothes go to your community?

If you’re unsure if your local charity clothing bin sends donations to their own shops or local communities, doing some quick research is always a good place to start. Information on where donations go can often be found online on the relevant charity’s website. 

We’re one of the few charities that send clothing donations straight to the local people who need them.

Based in Brother but operating all across Leeds, Yorkshire and the wider UK, The Clothing Bank team is one that ensures that the clothes we receive go straight into the hands of our community.

Find a Clothing Bank Bin near you

Thanks to our incredible network of donors, volunteers and supporters, this year we’ve been able to spend our funds on 7 new clothing bank bins. 

Spread across the Brotherton and Yorkshire area, our bins are owned and emptied by us. That means that we have total control over where the clothes that are donated to them end up.

This ensures that the only people who profit from your second-hand clothes are the people in the UK who need them most.

Not overseas, not resold, and never in landfill.

Find them at:

• The Clothing Bank, Low Street WF11 9HH

• Royal British Legion Car Par, South Milford, Leeds LS25 5AT

• Knottingley Rugby Union Car Park, Marsh Lane, Knottingley WF11 9DE

• Micklegate Car Park, Selby YO8 4EA

• Main Street, Burton Salmon, Leeds LS25 5JS

• Cottonwood Miners Welfare Scheme, Knollback Lane, Brampton, Barnsley S73 0TU

• Byram Park Social Club, Old Great N Road, Knottingley WF11 9FF

Learn more about how you can support The Clothing Bank here.