Donating Clothes to Charity Helps the Poor and the Environment

It’s fair to say that homelessness has always been a problem in the United States (as it is in most countries around the world). Today, homelessness is at the forefront in the fight against poverty, and it’s certainly going to take a lot of work. A Department of Housing and Urban Development report showed that in 2014, there were close to 600,000 homeless people across the country. From urban cities to rural areas, the homeless can be found in all corners of the U.S. The homelessness problem isn’t going away any time soon.

However, there are a number of ways to go about combating homelessness. One of them are clothing donations. Charitable clothing donations are an easy and effective way of helping families in need. Donating your lightly used clothing — including clothing you no longer wear — to charity goes a long way for those people who depend on the kindness of strangers.

Donating clothes is a bit unique in charitable giving in that it achieves more than one purpose. Besides helping the homeless and less fortunate, clothing donations also save billions of pounds of fabric from the landfills across the U.S. Unfortunately, far too much fabric is needlessly thrown away in the dump. Fabrics such as cotton, wool, nylon, and polyester make up about 5% of American landfill waste. A good 90% of that waste is recyclable and could be made into clothing for people in need. In 2006, an astonishing 2.5 billion pounds of fabric were saved from landfills by charitable organizations and used-clothing businesses. Although that can be considered a small miracle, the fact that so much fabric could have been thrown away makes one concerned about how much waste we actually produce.

For more information about clothing donations, feel free to leave a comment or question at the bottom. Remember: every donation counts!