Sorting Problems
When you donate clothes, you probably picture a kid trying them on. The reality is far weirder — most donated clothes never get worn again, and many end up in landfills 5,000 miles away.
What happens when you donate
When you drop clothes at a charity bin, here's the typical journey:
1. Sorted at a local warehouse. Around 10–20% are sellable in the local thrift store. 2. The rest is bundled into bales (huge compressed cubes weighing ~500 kg) and SOLD by weight to international second-hand traders. 3. Bales are shipped — often to Ghana, Kenya, Chile, or Pakistan — where local traders buy them sight-unseen. 4. Local traders sort again, sell what's wearable in markets, and dump the rest.
Most people don't know step 2 even exists. The 'donation' becomes a commodity sold by the kilogram on a global market that has nothing to do with charity.
Kantamanto: the world's biggest second-hand market
Kantamanto Market in Accra, Ghana receives around 15 million used garments every week — most from the US, UK, Canada, and EU. About 5,000 traders work there.
Here's the brutal math: roughly 40% of what arrives is unsellable junk. It's torn, stained, broken, or wrong for the local climate. Traders lose money on bales they can't sell. The unsellable clothes get dumped at the Old Fadama landfill — already overflowing — or burned on beaches. Mountains of Western fast-fashion now form part of Ghana's coastline. Local rivers and the Atlantic Ocean carry the rest.
The Or Foundation, a Ghana-based NGO, has documented the scale of this. They estimate Western brands generate billions of dollars in profit by exporting their waste problem to Ghana, while traders in Accra lose money trying to sort and sell it.
Why sorting is so hard
The reason donated clothes don't just become recycled fibre is sorting. To recycle a t-shirt, you first need to know:
- What fibre is it? (cotton, polyester, blend, wool…) - What colour is it? - Are the buttons, zippers, sequins, and prints removed?
Most donations come without labels (or with fake/illegible labels). A human sorter looks at maybe 1,000 garments per hour. Big sorting facilities (like the SOEX plant in Germany) handle hundreds of tonnes per day, but even they struggle to keep up with the volume.
New tech is helping. Near-infrared (NIR) scanners can identify fibre types in milliseconds. AI cameras from companies like Refiberd can sort by colour and contamination. But these systems are expensive and still rare globally.
Better alternatives to the donation bin
If you actually want your clothes to get worn again, here's what works better:
- Sell or swap directly. Vinted, Depop, Poshmark, ThredUp, or in-person clothing swaps. - Donate locally and specifically. Women's shelters, refugee resettlement programs, and school drives often need specific items in good condition. - Use brand take-back. Patagonia, Levi's, H&M, Eileen Fisher, and others have take-back programs that route used clothes more responsibly. - Repair before donating. A torn shirt is rarely resold — it's far more likely to end up in landfill via the donation route. - For truly worn-out items, look for textile-only recycling bins (some cities have them).
The goal is matching the clothing with someone who actually needs it — not throwing it into the global second-hand commodity stream.
Key takeaways
- Only ~10–20% of donated clothes get sold in local thrift stores.
- The rest is sold by the kilogram to international second-hand traders.
- Kantamanto Market in Ghana receives ~15 million used garments per week — 40% unsellable.
- Sorting is the bottleneck — most facilities still rely on human eyes.
- Direct local sale, swap, or brand take-back is much better than the donation bin.
Try this
Watch and learn
Search 'Kantamanto Market documentary' or 'The Or Foundation Ghana.' Watch a 5–10 minute video. Note 3 things that surprised you. Share one with a family member who shops fast fashion.
Plan a clothing swap
Organise a clothing swap with 3–5 friends or family. Everyone brings 5 clean items they don't wear. Spread them out and trade. Leftover clothes go to a local women's shelter or refugee centre. You'll be amazed how much you find that you'd actually wear.
Brand take-back research
Pick 3 brands you wear. Search 'take-back program' for each. List which ones offer take-back, what they accept, and what they do with it. Many require you to mail items in. Try it once with one item and see what happens.
Roughly how many used garments arrive at Ghana's Kantamanto Market each week?
Around 15 million used garments arrive at Kantamanto Market in Accra every week — mostly shipped from the US, UK, Canada, and EU. About 40% of these clothes are unsellable junk that ends up in Ghana's overflowing landfills, on beaches, or in the ocean.