Marie Kondo's Tidying Up has created a flood of clothing donations no one wants

Slate

Adele Meyer, executive director of the Association of Resale Professionals, says a lot of the clothing that people donated thanks to Kondo's Netflix reality show aren't “necessarily things that were salable." Some of her members had to pay to take clothing to the dump. Others had to pay overtime to sort through a backlog of out-of-date and low-quality items.  "And yet," reports Elizabeth L. Cline, "the coverage of Tidying Up has been overwhelmingly positive, a roundup of charities applauding the huge increase in our generous donations. Most charities won’t complain about a flood of clothes. Like Kondo (and the U.S. recycling market), these institutions’ business models are increasingly dependent on high volumes of consumption and purging, and their fate is tied in a sense to enabling wastefulness. But even in a typical year, charities reuse only one-fifth of what we donate, on average. As much as 80 percent of the clothes are sold onward to recyclers and exporters for pennies on the pound, and never see the charity shop floor."