Donations for non profit organizations flow across the United States every year, and among the most common items among donations for non profit organizations are clothing and accessories, from shirts and pants to hats, gloves, scarves, shoes, and more, and helping military families or other families in need is always encouraged by those who run these organizations. Even better, clothing donation locations are all across the United States, and nearly every community is bound to have at least one where clothes may be given to the crews there to be donated to those in need. Donations for non profit organizations can be given once a person assembled everything that they plan to donate and look up the nearest pick-up address. A quick Internet search may yield nearby pickup sites, and queries such as “Where can I donate clothes?” or “local donations pick-up sites” can show someone the name address of such a place, as well as driving directions. Donations for non profit organizations can not only help for veterans donations and others in need, but it can also reduce rates of how often Americans simply throw away their old textiles rather than give them to someone in need. Just how often are clothes wasted this way, and how effectively can donations curb this trend?
Clothes and Recycling
As of 2011, the recovery rate of used clothing was estimated to be 15%, and in the years since, it has been estimated that nearly 85% of all clothes purchased by Americans end up being thrown away and end up in landfills, or else are recycled into stuffing for furniture or are used as industrial rags rather than going to charities that need them. It is also estimated that each American throws away about 82 pounds of textile waste per year, and this adds up to a massive 12 million pounds of it every year, many millions of dollars’ worth of used clothes going into landfills, wasted.
The news is not all bad, however. Most Americans, around 95.4% of them, donate to charity every year at some level or other, and this sometimes includes clothing, which can in fact be tax-deductible in sufficient amounts. In the year 2007, for example, around $5.8 billion worth of clothes were donated to charity foundations across the United States, and around 80% of all donated clothes are distributed by charity foundations to any and all needy families or individuals who would want them. This means that curbing clothes waste is a matter of increasing the spirit and awareness of donations that already exists, and making sure that any and all citizens are ready to donate anythin that they do not keep for themselves. With enough donations given, many more needy families can be made more comfortable and landfills will not be choked with clothes. As a bonus, the donors will not have such overwhelming wardrobes, either.
The Act of Donating
Donations for non profit organizations begins for any household by taking inventory of all clothes that are owned. Often, homeowners will scatter their possessions across the home or in their apartment over the years, and this can make it difficult to take inventory. For this reason, donors are recommended to gather all clothing in the home, big and small, and assemble it all into a huge pile on the floor to create a comprehensive inventory. Now, the household members can carefully pick through all these clothes and decide what they will keep, and what they will donate. Clothes to be donated may be worn out, out of style, or redundant with newer clothes, or they simply do not feel exciting to wear. Clothes to be donated can be assembled in boxes or bags, and the items to be kept can be put back. A household with a lot of clothes may end up donating more than half of what they own if they are careful about what they really want and need to keep. Shoes, shirts, coats, dresses, hats, even belts may be considered and weeded out as thoroughly as the owner thinks is needed.
Once the donation clothes are sorted out, the family can take them to the nearest donations pick-up site, and may follow any additional directions that the staff there might have, and the job is done.