There are many benefits to donating your used clothes, not least of all the fact that it can help you to declutter your space and make room to expand your wardrobe or even just embrace minimalism for awhile. And with a donation pick up likely to be in your neighborhood or otherwise close by, donating clothes just by dropping them off at a donation pick up is easier than ever before.
Donating used clothes can also considerably lessen your environmental footprint. Though many of us don’t actively consider used and discarded clothing as contributing to waste, we consume an awful lot of clothes – around thirty outfits per every woman in the United States, an increase from the average of nine outfits per woman in 1930 – that eventually goes on to create an awful lot of waste. More than eighty pounds of textile waste are discarded, per American, every single year and twelve million of these pounds are simply thrown out. Unfortunately, many of these textiles, including used clothing, end up in landfills all around the country. Fortunately, getting rid of your used articles of clothing at a donation pick up can help to combat this problem, giving your used and unwanted things new purpose and keeping them from contributing to the massive amounts of waste that are found in any given landfill. In fact, nearly two million pounds of used clothing is donated every year in the United States and repurposed for various uses. Though a large portion is sold and worn again or given to those in need of clothes but without the money for adequate apparel, used articles of clothing are also often cut up and given a new life as industrial rags or shredded for furniture stuffing. However, there is still a lot of progress to be made and a long way to go, as less than twenty percent of all used clothing is given to a donation pick up or other means of donation. The rest, the eighty five percent that isn’t donated, ends up in a landfill.
Donating your used articles of clothing can also go to help someone in need, either directly or by providing profit to a charity organization such as the Salvation Army or Goodwill, which resell used articles of clothing and other used goods at steeply discounted prices. When donating clothing to charity, it is important to thoroughly consider the organization that you wish to give to. Giving to a wounded veterans charity, for example, can help many veterans that have struggled in the aftermath of the war they served in. Donating to a veterans charity can help to provide support for military families as well. American veterans have a considerably higher likelihood of unemployment when compared to the unemployment rates of the general population (as much as two percent) and more than two hundred thousand veterans were not able to find sustainable or long term work in 2011 alone. The rate of unemployment is greatest among younger veterans who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty four, who often have a general unemployment rate that is greater than twenty percent. Donating your used clothes to charities that support these struggling veterans can have a considerably positive impact on their lives.
Dropping your used clothes off at a donation pick up site is an easy way to give back to your community and helping to reduce waste and protect the environment with the additional benefit of helping you to clear out some space for storage in your closet. Donating used articles of clothing can be sometimes somewhat difficult, as many of us develop a sentimental attachment to our articles of clothing, but it is an act that can have so many profound positive effects on the world at large. In fact, donated clothes are often even sent overseas to developing nations, where they can benefit the people who live there, as they are typically sold for mere cents. Used clothing donations dropped off at a donation pick up site can also benefit you, as you should clear out any articles of clothing in your closet that have not been worn in six months.
