LThe success of “fast fashion” in recent years has led to an explosion in the number of low-quality used clothing collected by charities. At the same time, donations of branded habits have fallen drastically because their owners now often resell them online through specialized websites.
For the associations, the challenge is formidable, because these low-end stocks that they collect are now refused by African countries. An “aid” which prevented them from developing their local ready-to-wear and which caused serious damage to the environment, with unusable second-hand clothes ending up incinerated or abandoned in open-air landfills.
This perverse system has been widely declared. But its planned end endangers the economic model of charitable associations which traditionally finance their social activities by monetizing used habits received free of charge.
Associative shops
What solutions? Our research, carried out in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and in several Asian countries make it possible to trace paths.
The British case is particularly interesting, with unbridled consumption of fast fashion, twice as high as in France, and an associative system which has adapted to it.
Improving collection conditions appears to be a priority. In France, people come to drop off the clothes they want to donate in some 25,000 containers placed on sidewalks and parking lots. A practical system, but which does not allow quality control of deposits.
The presence in the United Kingdom of some eleven thousand association stores is a game-changer. These stores in fact collect half of the used clothing donated across the Channel, and in much better conditions: on average 35% of the habits given away are bought back by local customers, for only 15% of those which are placed in the containers.
These stores that we call charity shops also play an important role in social integration, employing 70,000 employees, with sometimes bumpy career paths, and some 230,000 volunteers. They are very popular for the good deals that can be had there and frequented by a large clientele.
Agreements with brands
This model is starting to develop in France. Since 2020, the French Red Cross has, for example, created second-hand stores, under the brand At Henri’s, also run by mainly volunteer teams. But these association stores specializing in second-hand products remain for the moment four times fewer in number in France than in the United Kingdom. The room for improvement is considerable.
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