Where Do Your Used Clothes Go? Some to charity, some to vintage stores, some get recycled, but most get shipped to another continent, such as Africa.
At least that’s what I learned from listening to Planet Money’s podcast #502: The Afterlife of a T-Shirt.
So why don’t all your donated Not all your used clothing go to local charities? There is just too much. From what it seems about 40% ends up leaving the continent and making it’s way to other countries, such as Kenya.
From what I remember about half of the donated clothing is bought by the ton by textile recyclers who pay about $0.07 per t-shirt. Likely more for your jeans but only because they are heavier. The textile recyclers sort the clothing into 4 categories: vintage (their money maker), rags to be, filling for teddy bears, and expatriation.
The clothing meant for expatriation is packed into bales, sold to foreign buyers, packed into containers and shipped, mostly to Africa.
When your clothing arrives at its destination, it’s once again sold to wholesalers while it’s still in bales. The bales are then sold to smaller wholesalers. As these wholesalers don’t know what is inside the bales, so in order manage the risk of a poor purchase, they sell rights priority access rights to few distributors to have first bids at the contents. The distributors sell the clothing they get to merchants. Frequently the shirts are once again bought by other merchants from villages and smaller towns.
While this is already fascinating to me as I was no expecting such a huge secondary market for second clothing, it does not end there. In many cases, the clothing making it’s way from America to Africa is too big for the new owners of the textiles. In most cases shirts are recut, resewn, and occasionally swap sleeves with one another to create “new” smaller shirts with their own unique style.
Hope you find this as fascinating as I do. If you do, check out Planet Money’s other podcasts on the life of a t-shirt.