Will you be donating clothes after your spring cleaning? Where they’ll likely end up...

Donating perfectly good clothes to the needy is the right thing to do. 

Unfortunately, the needy may never ever end up wearing your great suit or sweater. According to sustainable apparel consultant Shannon Whitehead, part of the 4.7 billion pounds of clothing donated by Americans annually actually end up in landfills. Some of them get recycled into rags and insulation and much of the clothing ends up in the markets of sub-Saharan Africa. 

After dropping off your clothes in public charity bins or drop boxes, the load is delivered to charity shops such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army. The clothes are then sorted, with only about 10 percent deemed good enough for sale in the retail shop. The rest is sold to textile recyclers, which ship tons of clothing in good enough shape for resale to countries including Ghana, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

If you want to be sure you’re hand-me-downs will wind up on someone in need here, do your homework before dropping off your duds. Donating directly to a homeless shelter is a good choice. You can also give used business attire to organizations such as Career Gear or the Women’s Alliance, which provide interview-worthy outfits to disadvantaged individuals seeking employment.