There are thousands of secondhand textile processors in the United States today, mostly small family businesses, many of them several generations old. According to John Paben, co-owner of used-clothing processer Mid- West Textile, “They never could.” Charities long ago passed the point of being able to sell all of our wearable unwanted clothes. Most Americans are thoroughly convinced there is another person in their direct vicinity who truly needs and wants our unwanted clothes. And this is just a small portion of the cast-offs of one single Salvation Army location in one city in the United States. The Quincy Street Salvation Army builds a completed wall made of 18 tons, or 36 bales, of unwanted clothing every three days. Clothing stores completely separate us from this reality, and a “rag-cut” room brings it home in an instant. Smashed together like this, stripped of its symbolic meaning, stacked up like bulk dog food, I was reminded that clothing is ultimately fiber that comes from resources and results in horrifying volumes of waste. ![]() ![]() I saw tags for Old Navy, Sean Jean, and Diesel peeking out of the bales, as well as slivers of denim, knits in bright maroons and bold stripes, and the smooth surfaces of Windbreakers. The cubes were then lifted and moved via forklift to the middle of the room, where a wall of wrapped and bound half-ton bales towered. ![]() In the rag-cut room, two men were silently pushing T-shirts, dresses, and every other manner of apparel into a compressor that works like the back of a garbage truck, squeezing out neat cubes of rejected clothing that weigh a half ton each.
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