Not every used clothing item that is donated to a thrift store or charitable institution is sold in the storefront. Some donated articles of clothing aren’t suitable for resale due to imperfections (rips/tears, stains, excessive wear, etc.). Sometimes donated clothing that is fit for resale and is priced and put out for sale for some reason, doesn’t sell. Thrift stores can’t keep these two types of clothing, they can’t sell these types of clothing, and they can’t throw them away (doing so would be socially irresponsible and hugely detrimental to the environment. 25 billion pounds of used clothing already enters our landfills every year. That number would increase exponentially if thrift stores started dumping their unwanted inventory, too). The solution is rather an ingenious one: Sell used clothing wholesale to other markets.

This type of wholesale used clothing is called mixed rags. Mixed rags are exactly two types of clothing: imperfect donations unsuitable for resale, and clothing items fit for resale that didn’t sell. And, as the name implies, mixed rags are comprised of men’s, women’s, and children’s used clothing.

In order to reduce costs associated with moving large quantities of clothing from store to warehouse (and from warehouse elsewhere), thrift stores bale the used clothing into large bales. The process of baling compresses each item, removing excess air, making each bale a densely-packed “brick” of clothing pieces. Each bale weighs about 800 lbs. In this baled state, they fit neatly into the shipping container or cargo hold of a tractor trailer, making shipments as efficient as possible.

The photograph below is of a bale of mixed rags outside a popular thrift store. The forklift will load the 800+ lb bale into the cargo hold of a tractor trailer for transport to a warehouse where it will await sale and shipment. Bales of mixed rags are sold per pound, rather than per piece as they are in-store.

The next two photographs show close-ups of the same bale. You can see individual items in the bale. At the end of the bale is a large piece of cardboard which serves to keep the bale firm and the clothing items in place. Sometimes instead of cardboard, bales have carpet remnants, rugs, or a large blanket at the end.

You can see from the picture above that there is a price tag hanging from one of the garments. This is not unusual, since much of the used clothing in a mixed rags bale came from the sales floor of the thrift store.

In this last picture you can see slight ripples where there is wire wrapped tightly around the bale. Amazing to think that 800 lbs of clothing can fit in such a small space, isn’t it?

One last thing you should know about mixed rags bales: They matter! These clothes are sometimes sold to textile recyclers where the fabric fibers are broken down and reprocessed into other products, even into new yarn and fiber for clothing production! These mixed rags are also sometimes sent overseas to developing nations where they are distributed to people who otherwise don’t have access to affordable clothing. Either way, they matter. Thank you for donating your used clothing!