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Posted By: Lisa Shea Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 03/30/10 05:59 AM
Bob and I just put out eight large boxes of stuff for the BigBrother BigSister people to pick up in the morning. There were two old humidifiers, clothes, old pots, and various other things. I was getting a little frustrated with him because he was sitting watching TV while I did all the packing work, but finally he came to help and he lugged it all out to the curb.

So that is good, the house is much cleaner now, the closets have more room in them.

Next, I have a pile of old Star Wars toys of James that I'm donating to a friend of mine in a few days. So that will help too!
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 03/30/10 06:19 AM
Good for you Lisa! That is great. You get a neater home and other people get inexpensive goodies.

I found out from Goodwill that unsellable clothes get sold by the pound to countries overseas, so nothing is wasted. I love how if we really work it out, that things can be used over and over until there is no more use possible.

Clothes - hand me down clothes - used clothes at thrift stores - returned to thrifts stores - rags, and quilt work and patch work - stuffing fibers...it's a life cycle!

What Star Wars toys? Do tell!
Posted By: Lisa Shea Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 03/30/10 06:38 AM
Right exactly, that's what I've been telling everyone on my recycling pages - put in ALL fabric even ripped and torn and stained fabric. The "dregs" get used for rags which are still useful.

I think I posted about all the Star Wars stuff on Facebook two or three months ago, and one of my friends claimed it. I had photos up and everything! I just haven't managed to see her when I had the items on me yet. All sorts of stuff, a Hoth snow scene with tons of pieces, a Millennium Falcon and X-Wing fighter, Darth Vader, lots of stuff.
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 03/30/10 06:56 AM
Damn, i wish i'd seen that. It's probably for the best though. Like i need more stuff. :-)
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 03/30/10 05:54 PM
You do have to be careful which places you give your ripped and torn stuff to. When I did my behind the scenes tours of my local thrift stores, they would either burn or throw away the unsellable clothes.

Those things need to go to a charity that DOES handle such fabric on a world-wide level. Goodwill has the infrastructure, for example. I would image Savers/Value Village (which is the Big Brother Sister charity) has it. Salvation Army has it. I hope they use that infrastructure. I know they do get money for it - something like a dollar a bale, or something.

My local thrift does put some things in bags to sell as rags, which I appreciate, and they also place old blankets in a bin for dog charities to come and take.
Posted By: Lisa Shea Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/06/10 12:38 AM
That is really sad that stores that should know better would destroy valuable items. I imagine it is a learning process for everyone.

It is like the libraries that throw old books INTO THE TRASH instead of even just recycling them as paper. Those things always bug me!
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/06/10 09:05 PM
Yeah, that is super frustrating. My library here puts out a FREE bin for those kinds of books, which is nice.

Even lousy books no one would want can be used as house insulation, as we mentioned.

Eventually we will be forced to learn, as a world society, that we simply cannot toss potential resources into landfills. There will be a tipping point sooner or later on the state of our resources.
Posted By: Lisa Shea Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/11/10 09:07 AM
I think people really are making the transition, which is a good thing. Maybe in 30 years we'll look back on this time period and think what a pivotal moment in history it was. And we're here! Making the change!
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/24/10 11:29 PM
I do think things are improving. But I also think things will get worse before they really get better. The pinch of scare resources will have to hurt home first. People mostly do not even recycle, even if there is a recycle bin right next to their trash. :-(
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/24/10 11:32 PM
Back OT, though, I just added a pair of decent shoes to my "donate' bin. I just don't wear them. No need to hold onto them when someone else could enjoy a nice inexpensive pair of shoes. :-)
Posted By: Lisa Shea Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/25/10 12:31 AM
That is awesome Jilly!

Here in my town people recycle almost 50% so I do think people are getting much better about recycling. The Staples takes recyclables. The Price Chopper takes recyclables. Even BestBuy takes in free e-recyclables. So it's everywhere!
Posted By: jilly Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/25/10 12:48 AM
Lisa, I really want to live in the Northeast where people are so open to taking care of the planet.

But then I don't want to leave this landscape i love, so here I stay.

So in the meantime, i will just encourage everyone i know to get better at recycling and reusing. :-) I can't even get my local aunt and uncle to recycle anything. Nothing at all - and they have a lot of beer cans and beer bottles they chuck.

Or my MIL in LA, who goes through a zillion cans of soda and small plastic water bottles a day.

This is just for example. They know how much it means to me to recycle and i love them, but it just isn't worth it to them to have an extra container in the kitchen for recyclables.

I walk around town here and am constantly rummaging though people's overflowing garbage to take things to recycling bins. I know change is happening, but it's really slow in some areas of the country.

Posted By: Lisa Shea Re: Donate Old Clothes to Charity - 04/25/10 12:52 AM
More and more trash companies are doing the recycling themselves, so my hope is that that will spread across the country and then it won't matter what individual people do. It's in the trash company's best interest since they get an income flow for recyclables and an income hit for trash they have to bury.
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