AIBU to ask why charity shops no longer accept "Rags"?

Which adds to the problem referred to many times on this thread. Fast fashion. Low quality goods. The landfill mountain grows and grows …

I think the decent stuff goes on Vinted and EBay . Can’t say I blame them . I think the days of getting a true bargain are rare with the advent of phones as items can be looked up online .

Absolutely this. The disgusting bags of crap we receive randomly are dreadful. Sorting through this sort of rubbish is truly awful.

I dont use charity shops anymore they are far to expensive now.
I can buy new but cheaper.

Charity shops are much more expensive these days so a lot more picky.

It costs them to get rid of junk.

That's exactly what some people want, yes. They've got very used to the idea of charity shops as a repository for their unwanted crap with a touch of feelgood on top.

There's an animal charity where I live that takes books & DVDs to sell to one of those book buying Web companies - Magpie or whatever - to raise funds.

I give my books to a local supermarket (Co op) they have a bookcase next to the notice board. Just pop the books on, there is a charity bucket with a 50p a book if you can. It’s really well used. I also get books from there and theres a healthy turnover .

We put clean old clothes, knockers, bras, socks, jumpers, towels, for rags,
in a roll top metal bin outside our local Fire Station.
None of the 5 CS in the town accept ragman donations any more, short as
they are of space.
Many of the clothes on the rails should be ragged, bobbly old jumpers especially.

If charity shops have stopped accepting it then I guess pretty soon the large bins may also be discontinued.

i always use salvation army bins, i did carry round books in the back of my car recently and eventually donated to a charity shop but felt awkward doing so - out of touch

Clothing that goes for "rags" isn't immediately shredded. The recycling company will detail sort and grade it into items suitable for export and then different types for recycling into insulation, wiping rags etc. just because a charity shop has rejected it as they know it won't sell, it may be suitable for another market. This doesn't take away from the fact too much crappy clothing is sent overseas (and comes from overseas in the first place).

Why is it "Snooty" to have their own hangers? Charity shops usually have their own so there is a uniform look in the shop. It amazes me that people think they are entitled to drop off whatever they please and if the charity dares to say "Thanks but no thanks" they are branded ungrateful etc. Would you rather the charity pays to dispose of your unwanted items then you get rid yourself?

Clarks accept shoes which are too grotty to sell and then they recycle them. They don't advertise this very much which is a pity.

I keep my clothes until worn out. I cut them up and use to clean things like fatty/oily plans etc. I also use to dry the cat litter tray. Then they go into the bin.
Our bin rubbish is burned, so I don’t feel guilty.
Clothes that I can afford don’t last that long.
I sell my worn once don’t like clothes I sell on Vinted.
Where are the quality clothes that people talk about, most things are bloody polyester.

I just had the WORST experience at a charity shop recently, giving away really nice old children's clothes. Told by pair on the till that they don't accept them, when I have been donating for years and explicitly been told they do accept them. Told me this was never the case and that these items must have been overlooked before, made me take a load of stuff back and on my way out one of them said "sorry for the misjudgment on your end"...

Rags dumped in developing countries creating acres of cast off clothing is the result. The quality of clothes means that many can’t be recycled and they are just dumped - the articles below are just a couple, about Ghana, and Chile, and there are countless other examples. It is horrifying over consumption.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/may/31/stop-dumping-your-cast-offs-on-us-ghanaian-clothes-traders-tell-eu

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?q=www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/fast-fashion-turning-parts-ghana-into-toxic-landfill/100358702" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/100358702

www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-dumping-ground-for-fast-fashion-leftovers

I didn’t know they did this, and I’m not surprised they no longer do.

I send very good condition stuff to charity shop. Stuff that’s maybe not quite so good to the clothing bins. Things that are really not suitable for wearing anymore I cut up and shove under the sink to use as cleaning rags etc.

A lot of what you put into clothes recycling banks (you'll find them in supermarket car parks) gets turned into rags.

So what should you do with clothes that are worn out or stained and can’t be resold? If charity shops understandably don’t want them, what are the alternatives? Do council tips want them as recycling or is that just passing the problem into them to solve? What does that leave - the rubbish bin?

Have you considered that the final sentence of your post was unnecessary?

OP didn't say it was hard to understand. She asked why, implying that she just didn't know.

Presumably they already have enough hangers to keep their rails well stocked. So why would they want any more? As has been mentioned a number of times on this thread, it costs charity shops to dispose of unsellable items. They’re not being snooty, they’re simply trying to act as an income generator for their cause rather than a recycler for those who don’t want to use their own recycling bins for whatever reason.

This has been bought home in a big way here in Birmingham where the bin men are on strike. The amount of rubbish people produce is shocking. And I'm fed up of reporting fly tipping next to a textile recycling bin at the end of my road. At least once a week the recycling bin is surrounded by old broken furniture, duvets, children's toys - this week toys still in their boxes, builders waste and black sacks containing goodness knows what. One week amongst the general detritus there were boxes and boxes of half used packets of someone's prescription medication. People are not only wasteful but they're so dirty as well.

I guess since online retailers just dump brand new returns in landfill overseas or 'sell on for recycling' (because it's cheaper than processing it back onto the shelves) then they will have already flooded what market there was.