Bins for Profit: How Your Donated Clothing Ends Up in Africa

Congratulations to CTV’s W5 for its definitive report on Canadian donated clothes. Over many years there have been news stories about clothing donation bins. Canadians give with the best of intentions, hoping old clothes could help those in need. CTV invested the time and money to get to the bottom of this story so we can all know better – and give better.

View CTV W5 report on second hand clothes. 

Part 1: Bins for profit, CTV W5, October 22, 2024

Part 2: Who is really behind the bins, CTV W5 October 23, 2024

Part 3: Shady players in the donation bin game

CTV’s report is shocking. This is not what Canadians thought happened to their donations of clothes in clothing bins. Neither is it what we want Canada to be.

Our donated clothes – “essentially waste” - are being shipped around the world and most are in landfill in poorer countries, like Tunisia. Dumping free goods in foreign markets is textbook “illegal dumping”. Tunisia is trying to regulate these imports. “Polyester is a catastrophe” to Tunisia’s environment.

Knowing the problem is the first step in working towards a solution. CTV’s W5 has clearly exposed the problem.

Comments over the years

“I drove truck and delivered bales of clothes from USA Salvation Army to sorting warehouses in Brampton and Scarborough (Ontario, Canada), most of it sold to African countries 44 tons at a time.”

Dave Palladini

These comments from Canadians are so helpful in piecing together information about Canada’s rag trade. Second hand clothes are trucked from the US into Canadian sorting and baling centres. According to Statistica, in 2017, Canada received second-hand clothing imports valued at US$45.6m from the US, and US$4.7m from China. These were likely sorted and baled at Canadian centres, creating jobs. An industry estimated 2%-7% of donated clothing not even suitable for export is classified as waste. This would likely be disposed of in Canadian landfills?

“Diabetes Canada and Cerebral Palsies who depend on clothing donations thank you for this idiotic piece.”

Craig Alain

The benefit Canadian charities receive from selling donated second-hand clothes to the rag traders must be assessed relative to the downstream harmful costs – the human cost of trapping street vendors in poverty, the economic loss of a local textile industry, and the environmental cost of shipping clothes overseas and landfills in Africa relative to landfills in Canada.

We hope facts and figures can inform the discussion: 

Diabetes Canada received $11.7 million from donated clothing sales to Value Village in 2016, 25% of its total revenues. Diabetes Canada is one of Canada’s 100 largest charities with $26.4 million in donations. Diabetes Canada spends $6.3 million on research, $13.2 million on programs, education and support for people living with diabetes, $3.2 million on management and administrative costs and $12.9 million on fundraising.

Charity Intelligence’s report on Diabetes Canada

Ontario Federation of Cerebral Palsy received only $122,009 in revenues from selling second-hand clothes, 15% of its total revenues of $811,461. This is a small charity with annual donations of $259,073 in 2015. In 2023, Ontario Federation of Cerebral Palsy transferred its Household Pickup Services to a controlled entity. It receives bin rental fees of $21,000.

Charity Intelligence's report on Ontario Federation of Cerebral Palsy

What we need to ask is whether these benefits offset the economic, environmental and human harm of exporting used clothes.

To learn more about donated clothes and the second-hand rags trade:

Andrew Brooks "Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second Hand Clothes". The global trade of second hand clothes that perpetuate poverty.

Angela Gilbert, Gil Shochat "Clothing donation bins spark turf war in Ontario; much of the money does not go to charity", CBC News, January 30, 2012

Ashley Burke, Charges laid after stolen clothing donation bins found in storage, CBC News February 9, 2018

Susan Burgess Ottawa's donation bin policies not strict enough, charities say: Several boxes at city facilities belong to 'a charity' that has reported no revenue from two years of donations, CBC News, May 15, 2018

Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura "For Dignity and Development, East Africa Curbs Used Clothing Imports, New York Times, October 12, 2017

Andrew Brooks, BBC World News, February 12, 2015 - 6 minute video with Andrew Brooks describing the downstream impact dumping our used clothes on developing markets.

Garth Frazer, Associate Profession Economic Analysis, University of Toronto focus on second hand clothes and their destructive role in development and productivity on African economies.

Gregory Warner, David Kestenbaum The Afterlife of American clothes, NPR December 2, 2013

The Economist, "Let them weave their own: East Africa's used-clothes trade comes under fire. Government takes aim at well-meaning foreigners, March 30, 2016

The Economist, Second-hand clothes, Trading Yarns, September 28, 2000

Sarah O'Connor Prices for second-hand UK clothes soar, Financial Times, April 20,2012