What Happens to Donated Clothes: The Trade Behind the Bin

What happens to donated clothes after the bin? Some sell in local thrift stores; the rest is baled and sold to graders who route each piece to secondhand markets at home and abroad, wiping rags, recycled fiber, or waste. This episode follows one flannel shirt from a parking-lot donation bin through a thrift store back room, a grading warehouse and an export container to an overseas market, then down to rags and fiber. It explains why volume and value run in opposite directions, uses EPA 2018 textile data, UN Comtrade 2023 export figures and peer-reviewed research, and notes that shares vary by organization, city and year — no national figure tracks every garment. #DonatedClothes #SecondhandClothing #TextileRecycling #UnderTheOrdinary