The United States recycles millions of pounds of textiles every year. Large grading facilities separate clothing into categories based on quality and type, then resell these "grades" of clothing to large buyers. High-quality clothing is often sold to large thrift store chains, medium quality clothing to organizations across seas and end-of-the-line clothing is often made into fibrous filler for car seats, or insulation. Polyester can even be melted down into small pellets to be resold. The global market for used clothing is unique and often considered "erratic". It is known for drastic changes in price and relatively little stability. For this reason, it is considered “challenging” to be a used clothing collector. And for the same reason, there are few of us around. Used clothing can be viewed as a global commodity whose price is tied to events and conditions that shape the larger textile industry, such as oil and cotton, global supply and demand, country bans, booms and recessions within purchasing countries, exchange rates, fuel costs, etc.

Currently, virgin oil is still competitive. It puts competitive pressure on recycled textiles and plastics, constraining their value. The US Dollar has been historically strong, making our product more expensive for trading countries. Recent instability both economic and political in Africa and southern Asia have negatively impacted demand for our product and driven down prices as well. Many of the countries that buy our cloth are still in recession because of the effects of the epidemic and other factors.

However, even with prices last year at a 20 year low, we still have buyers that want your clothing and will pay reasonable prices for it.

The Life Cycle of Recycled Clothing

Buying and selling used clothing is our 'Bread and Butter'. Currently, over 90 different thrift stores depend on us throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa to help them bring their excess clothing to a far-away market. When clothing leaves your store and into our truck, it begins a journey that is actually longer and more interesting than you would expect. Depending upon its condition, it could end up in another thrift store here in Minnesota within only a few days! We are working hard to make this more and more the case. Most clothing, however, will be made into bales weighing over 1,000lbs and thru the help of a broker, will be sent on a semi trailer up to the ports of Ontario, Canada, or down to ports in Texas and to companies called "graders".

A grading facility is generally a large warehouse where the bales are broken apart and the clothing is passed thru conveyors to sorting stations where people separate it based on type, condition, etc. A grading company creates batches of clothing of similar type, grade, etc. and sells it to customers both domestic and across seas. Most graders are operated by immigrant families that came to the U.S., saw our excessive surplus of used clothing and started businesses to sell it back to store owners and merchants they know in their home countries. These folks are still critical to the textile industry because they form the bridge between collectors like us in the Midwest and merchants on other continents. The brokers that help us find these graders are also critical. They do the hard work of matching clothing suppliers to clothing buyers. They also provide the financial bridge between buyers and sellers. Without the short-term financing that brokers give, sellers like us would have to wait months to get paid. It takes months to ship clothing across seas and transport it to the exact towns or villages where they are needed, and then get that money back home. Brokers take care of the shipping logistics and the money conversions. They ensure we get paid promptly so that the whole cycle can work fluidly. Months from now, that item of clothing that you gave to your local thrift shop, the one sent off for recycling , , . is now being trucked to a small village in Niger, where a local merchant will sell it to a very happy villager.

There is of course another grade of clothing to consider: end-of-the-line clothing. This is clothing that is too worn, too torn, too dirty or too smelly to ever wear again. Graders gather this clothing together and depending upon its content, transform it into raw industrial product. Synthetics and poli-blends carrying plastics can be melted down and molded into small pellets that companies around the world will buy as raw plastic. Sweaters can be shredded and made into car seat filler. Other clothing, depending upon its source, can become fillers for blankets, insulation for your home or other truly neat commodities.