Do you ever wonder? — Sophia Rebekah

Do you ever wonder where our clothing goes after we donate it?

In the past few years, I’ve been thinking about this question so much and have begun surfacing this question in conversations that I have. Today, I thought I’d engage in a two-way dialogue with you on this topic as well.

As a society, we love shopping for new things, clothing included. Because of this, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste is sent to landfills every year in the United States. When looking at global textile waste, this number rises to 92 million tons of textile waste that’s sent to landfills annually. If we think about how many large retailers there are that we visit (whether in-person or online) to purchase items and how quickly we donate those items when we’re ready to shop for something new, it’s no surprise that these numbers are staggering. I’ve caught myself in this mindset of purchasing new clothes when I need to buy something specific to attend a bridal shower, baby shower, dinner party - you name it. It’s not great to admit, but we’re all learning together - right?

Okay, so let’s say we purchase a shirt for a dinner party at a large, fast fashion retailer. However, after some time passes we want to clean out the closet to make room for new items. We then donate that nice shirt. What happens next?

Research shows that only 10-30% of clothing donations to thrift shops are actually sold in store. Because thrift stores may not have capacity to sell the large volume of donations, more than half of clothing donations are exported overseas to the Global South and dumped in overflowing landfills, causing devastating environmental pollution and unsafe living conditions for those left to deal with our fashion waste.

This is overwhelming, at least for me. So, what can we do? Well, I recommend that we start by doing these things:

Before shopping, consider wearing what you already own. If you need something specific, review the next recommendation.
Buy what you can at thrift stores, resale shops, or sustainability-driven brands

Thrift and resale shops in Houston, TX worth checking out:

Crossroads, Plato’s Closet (has great workout clothing options), Buffalo Exchange, Goodwill, Family Thrift Center, Designer Diva, Men’s Resale in Rice Village

Shop brands that have integrated sustainability into their clothing development practices, like utilizing recycled materials to create new clothing or aiming to be net-zero in company operations. A few examples below:

Girlfriend Collective, Allbirds, Vuori, Everywhere Apparel Inc, Reformation, Boyish, Patagonia, Tentree

Find out if a brand you like has clothing take-back programs

Participate in clothing take-back programs or trade-in programs to create a better, more responsible circularity in the clothing lifecycle. These programs enable companies to take back clothing you are ready to say goodbye to, and in turn, they either recycle or reuse the materials. A few examples below:

Lean into learning

I’ve been doing this quite a bit myself and here is a resource that I’ve found very informative:

Watch Business Insider’s 11-minute video on How 7.5 Million Pounds Of Donated Clothes End Up At A Market In Ghana Every Week | World Wide Waste.

Be curious and continue the dialogue

I’d love to learn with you! Comment below if you have additional sustainability-driven brands that you’d like to highlight or if you have any comments / questions.
As customers and consumers, we have so much purchasing power. Let’s advocate for greater environmental and sustainability practices from brands we love by continuing this important dialogue and staying curious to what an accessible, circular fashion system could look like for our society.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not perfect and I’m still learning how to build sustainable shopping habits into my personal life. But hey, we can try to get better together - right?

With love,

Sophia Rebekah