Donating Your Old Clothes to Red Cross
Today, textiles stands as one of the biggest industries in the entire world, and everyone around the world needs clothes to wear. Every day clothes, work uniforms, formal wear, and more are produced and consumed globally, and the United States is an especially large manufacturer and consumer of clothing. Many billions of dollars are spent every year on consumer textiles, but sometimes, these clothes don’t end up being recycled or donated at the end of their lives. For all the clothe consumed in the United States, a lot of textile waste is also generated. This does nothing but clog up landfills, when instead charities such as Red Cross could accept them as donations. Clothes donations are always welcome, and American Red Cross donations sites can be found across the nation. A person can donate clothes to Red Cross any time of the year, and the choice to donate clothes to Red Cross is to do a humanitarian act that is always appreciated. To donate clothes is to help reduce landfill waste and help out families in need. This is common work around the winter holiday time, such as for Christmas, when Americans are in a charitable spirit. A family can donate clothes to Red Cross to help take part in this positive trend.
Rates of Charity and Waste
How much used clothing is donated every year, and how much is simply thrown away instead? Americans consume billions of pounds of clothing every single year, but they also throw away quite a bit. In fact, the textiles industry has a relatively low reclamation rate, with only about 15% of old clothes being donated or recycled. The rest end up in landfills, where they take up space and don’t do anyone any good. Many million of pounds of textiles are thrown away like this. Some clothes are recycled, and shredded to make furniture stuffing. Charities such as Red Cross, however, would argue that donations for families in need are a better use of old clothes.
The good news is that Americans are certainly charitable already, and a boost to this existing charitable spirit could help curb rates of clothing waste. Even now, American are donating a lot of textiles to help in need, showing that interest already exists. Around the world, some 14.3 million tons of donated American clothes are helping families in need. What is more, some 70% of Americans give to charity, and this often includes clothing charity efforts. Some donors and charitable individuals are wealthy, and they often cite “giving back to the community” as their main motivation for giving. To donate clothes to Red Cross is to help boost this charitable spirit, and donations sites will always welcome this. Red Cross’s sites are open all day, every day of the year to accept donations, such as clothes. How might someone donate clothes to Red Cross effectively?
Make the Donation
Donating clothes to charity can be done in just a few simple, effective steps, even if a household has a very large inventory of clothing. To start with, everyone in the household can work together to gather all clothes and personal accessories into a single large inventory. This means that all shirts and pants, coats, dresses, shoes, gloves, and more are assembled into a single pile on the floor. This can make it easy to take stock of how large everyone’s wardrobe is, and some people may be surprise by how large this pile ends up becoming.
Now that everything is in one place, the family members can start taking stock and sorting everything. Each person can pick through the pile and determine what they really want to keep, and what will be set aside for charity efforts. Clothing that ends up being donated may, for example, be out of fashion, the wrong size, worn out, or redundant with better items in the wardrobe. If a piece of clothing hasn’t been worn in a long time, and the owner doesn’t intend to wear it again, it can also be designated for charity.
The clothes to be donated can be gathered into boxes and bags, and taken to a nearby Red Cross pickup site. The donor may even receive a tax deductible form for all their clothes that they donated in this manner.