above: Bales of clothing sold by a Kenyan importer (photo
credit: via  Food for thought: have you ever wondered where our
donated clothes really go? Unless it’s for a specific charity or
event, what does a clothing drop at your local Goodwill entail
for the life cycle of your used clothes?  A recent NPR feature
addressed this after a man named Jeff Steinberg donated an old
lacrosse jersey to a Goodwill in Miami and then spotted it on a
street vendor in Sierra Leone.  Apparently, shops like Goodwill
will sell or donate a portion of our donated clothes, but a
majority will be exported to places like sub-Saharan Africa –
where over a billion pounds of used clothing is shipped per year
from the United States. A clothing market in Nairobi sells used
clothes that are cleaned and ironed to look like new again, and
then sold to other vendors or shoppers. Along the way, vendors
and tailors make money by resizing and reselling many of our
used clothing items.  This was a fascinating read since I have
never considered t