Luv2Roam
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I found this article interesting, even with what happens to donated clothes in general:
Cities bursting at seams with excess used clothes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050923/ts_usatoday/citiesburstingatseamswithexcessusedclothes
By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY
Fri Sep 23, 6:34 AM ET
When disaster strikes, Americans clean out their closets.
They fill bag after bag with secondhand clothes and send them off by the truckload.
Now overloaded relief agencies are saying: Enough.
So many truckloads of clothes have poured into Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina that volunteers from the St. Vincent de Paul Society gave away 100,000 pieces of clothing in 10 days, says Mike Acaldo, director of the Baton Rouge chapter. The group's 20,000-square-foot warehouse is still "packed," he says.
In Gulfport, Miss., the county emergency management director has begged kind-hearted donors to stop. Without enough volunteers to distribute them, clothes ended up piled by the roadside and strewn across parking lots.
Kathleen Smiley, a local lawyer, has spent more than a week trying to clear the mess after she saw a pile next to the road near her home. On Tuesday, she worked until midnight, picking up clothes by the light of her car headlights. She plans to sort them all over again and give them to evacuees.
"I'm trying so hard to get them up real quick so they don't get ruined," she says.
Relief agencies dread the influx of clothes that inevitably follows a disaster. It takes time and volunteers to sort the items and dispose of things that are unwearable. The Red Cross doesn't accept donated clothes; it wants cash so those in need can buy new.
"It's empowerment, it's their own recovery, and it's a boost to the local economy," spokeswoman Sarah O'Brien says.
In New Iberia, La., agencies are looking for a second warehouse to hold unneeded clothes. "The people who are giving used clothes are wanting to help," says Joe Watts of Adventist Community Services. "We appreciate it, but ... it can be the second disaster."
After the Loma Prieta earthquake in California in 1989, warehouses filled up with unneeded items, including mink teddy bears, says Brenda Phillips, a disaster recovery expert at Oklahoma State University. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, donated clothing got wet and moldy and had to be thrown away. "I have seen this happen in every disaster I have studied during the last 23 years," Phillips says.
It's hard to convince people that their donated clothes aren't needed somewhere. "Donating clothes is a form of charity that every single person can participate in," says Christine Nyirjesy Bragale of Goodwill Industries International.
Even in normal times, as much as half the clothing dropped off at a Goodwill store ends up being sold to a "baler" who recycles what's not in good enough shape to resell.
About 2.5 billion pounds of clothes a year end up with textile recyclers, according to Bernie Brill, executive director of a textile recycling association. About 35% gets shipped overseas and sold. The rest gets reprocessed into new fabric, sold as rags or sent to a landfill.
In Gulfport, Smiley has contacted churches that will ship excess clothing to the poor in Central America. Local residents may not use all the clothes, but "we're certainly not going to be rude about it or ungrateful," she says.
"If Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Omaha, pull up in a U-Haul that they've driven across the country at $3 a gallon with clothes their church has gathered, nobody on my watch is going to turn them around and send them home," she says firmly. "That would not be gracious and that would not be appreciative. And that's not the way Mississippi is."
Cities bursting at seams with excess used clothes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050923/ts_usatoday/citiesburstingatseamswithexcessusedclothes
By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY
Fri Sep 23, 6:34 AM ET
When disaster strikes, Americans clean out their closets.
They fill bag after bag with secondhand clothes and send them off by the truckload.
Now overloaded relief agencies are saying: Enough.
So many truckloads of clothes have poured into Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina that volunteers from the St. Vincent de Paul Society gave away 100,000 pieces of clothing in 10 days, says Mike Acaldo, director of the Baton Rouge chapter. The group's 20,000-square-foot warehouse is still "packed," he says.
In Gulfport, Miss., the county emergency management director has begged kind-hearted donors to stop. Without enough volunteers to distribute them, clothes ended up piled by the roadside and strewn across parking lots.
Kathleen Smiley, a local lawyer, has spent more than a week trying to clear the mess after she saw a pile next to the road near her home. On Tuesday, she worked until midnight, picking up clothes by the light of her car headlights. She plans to sort them all over again and give them to evacuees.
"I'm trying so hard to get them up real quick so they don't get ruined," she says.
Relief agencies dread the influx of clothes that inevitably follows a disaster. It takes time and volunteers to sort the items and dispose of things that are unwearable. The Red Cross doesn't accept donated clothes; it wants cash so those in need can buy new.
"It's empowerment, it's their own recovery, and it's a boost to the local economy," spokeswoman Sarah O'Brien says.
In New Iberia, La., agencies are looking for a second warehouse to hold unneeded clothes. "The people who are giving used clothes are wanting to help," says Joe Watts of Adventist Community Services. "We appreciate it, but ... it can be the second disaster."
After the Loma Prieta earthquake in California in 1989, warehouses filled up with unneeded items, including mink teddy bears, says Brenda Phillips, a disaster recovery expert at Oklahoma State University. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, donated clothing got wet and moldy and had to be thrown away. "I have seen this happen in every disaster I have studied during the last 23 years," Phillips says.
It's hard to convince people that their donated clothes aren't needed somewhere. "Donating clothes is a form of charity that every single person can participate in," says Christine Nyirjesy Bragale of Goodwill Industries International.
Even in normal times, as much as half the clothing dropped off at a Goodwill store ends up being sold to a "baler" who recycles what's not in good enough shape to resell.
About 2.5 billion pounds of clothes a year end up with textile recyclers, according to Bernie Brill, executive director of a textile recycling association. About 35% gets shipped overseas and sold. The rest gets reprocessed into new fabric, sold as rags or sent to a landfill.
In Gulfport, Smiley has contacted churches that will ship excess clothing to the poor in Central America. Local residents may not use all the clothes, but "we're certainly not going to be rude about it or ungrateful," she says.
"If Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Omaha, pull up in a U-Haul that they've driven across the country at $3 a gallon with clothes their church has gathered, nobody on my watch is going to turn them around and send them home," she says firmly. "That would not be gracious and that would not be appreciative. And that's not the way Mississippi is."
