Thread by @bopinion

If one thing has united Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s spring cleaning.

The only problem? Thrift stores are informally reporting unprecedented volumes of donations trib.al/EJk6sY8

The thrift industry is more important than most people realize.

In 2018, Goodwill alone funded $5.3 billion in charitable services, including education assistance, job training and work placements trib.al/EJk6sY8

Turning the random assortment of stuff that's dropped at a donation door into that kind of money isn't easy.

Roughly half the space of any Goodwill outlet is devoted to sophisticated sorting and pricing operations trib.al/EJk6sY8

Any donations that make it to the sales floor will be cycled off quickly to make way for new stuff.

What doesn't sell on the floor — as much as 75% of the merchandise, depending on location — is then sent onto global markets trib.al/EJk6sY8

With economies now seizing up, however, that’s no guarantee.

Mexican traders, who account for at least 30% of the business at thrift stores close to the southern border, stopped working when travel restrictions were imposed in March trib.al/EJk6sY8

🇰🇪Kenya, one of the world's largest buyers of secondhand clothes, recently suspended such imports from countries "experiencing an epidemic."

Prices for clothing bound for Africa have fallen by more than half in recent weeks trib.al/EJk6sY8

A rush of well-intentioned spring cleaners are dumping their used goods at the doors of closed thrift shops.

Drop-off in demand➕surge in supply ➡️ a storage problem.

Thrift stores are now looking for additional space or even suspending donations trib.al/EJk6sY8

Informal "donations" left on the sidewalk in front of a closed thrift store don’t help anyone. They:

➡️Create health & safety risks
➡️Create extra disposal costs
➡️Throw away a potential source of revenue
➡️Cause good products to end up in landfills trib.al/EJk6sY8

If you’re looking to donate, you should make sure your stuff is labeled and take care that it’s actually usable.

A broken toaster isn't a gift to Goodwill, it's a cost trib.al/EJk6sY8

When the U.S. starts to recover from the pandemic, thrift-based charities will have a crucial role to play in getting people back to work.

Until then, America's spring-cleaning drive needs to slow down so it doesn't clean out the charities too trib.al/EJk6sY8