Abandoned T-Shirt Project

Donating T-Shirts to Charity

Several correspondents have mentioned donating shirts to charity; they seemed concerned that using the abandoned T-shirts for an art project might be depriving someone needy from clothing that they could not otherwise afford. I thought that the well-worn shirts I was gathering were of no use to anyone, really, but I decided to look into it. Plus, a foot injury has kept me from long walks this week, so my T-shirt tally is 0. 

First, I took a trip to the local Goodwill Industries shop to see what they can use. I was met by a WALL of T-shirts, neatly arranged by color.

 

These shirts were in very good shape, showing very light wear if any at all. Prices ranged from $1.99 for the white shirts to $2.99 for the brightly colored ones.

Now, the shirts I've found are not what Goodwill wants. It seems that some charities will accept heavily used or stained T-shirts, which they in turn sell to rag pickers, who cut them into--what else--rags. But not all charities will accept these unwearable garments, so it is important to check with the charity ahead of time. Otherwise, the well-meant donation is simply a drag on the charity's time and budget--they have to pay disposal costs.

Some municipalities have fiber recycling programs that will accept cotton goods (none of them that I found mentioned cotton/acrylic blends).

I'll post about how fibers are reclaimed and reused at another time. Let's get back to what happens to T-shirts that are donated to charities.

As you can see from the photos I took of a nearby Goodwill, they are rolling in T-shirts (the more upscale charities here don't even accept them). The problem is that each item a charity sells in a shop like this costs them a certain amount of money--rent, utilities, worker pay. A T-shirt costs more to clean, sort, label, and sell than it can earn, especially in the days of 5-for-$10 new T-shirts. It is true that the purpose of many charities is to train workers, but they cannot operate at a deficit for long. When they get to the point that they cannot afford to sort, clean, label and sell garments, they bundle them and ship them to third-world countries, generally Africa.

The do-gooders among us (and I count myself as one) say, well, great--as long as someone can use this item.

Of course, life is not that simple. For one thing, a percentage of that giant bundle is unusable by anyone for any purpose and just goes into a landfill in Africa rather than one in America, having gobbled up tons of shipping fuel on the way. As for the rest? The influx of used garments has destroyed domestic manufacturing. In Zambia, for example, "the skills, the infrastructure, and the capital of an entire industry are now virtually extinct, with no a single clothing manufacturer left in the country today" (from T-Shirt Travels, a documentary that follows the path of a donated T-shirt to Africa).

Sigh. Unintended consequences indeed.

 

Two Kinds of Abandoned T-Shirts

It's the end of Week 1 of this project, and I've found 3 T-shirts while walking in north Berkeley.

Shirts #1 & #2

These two T-shirts were jumbled in a pile of swimsuits, towels, and shirts of all kinds that were spilling out of a broken plastic bag on the curb on a residential side street. I call this the Intentionally Abandoned find--T-shirts that were placed out on purpose. In this case the purpose was unclear, however, because their condition made them unwearable--holes at the underarms and very worn neck ribbings.

Stats: One shirt was purple and the other a faded gray/green--both were printed with pseudo-Southwest designs. No manufacturer labels. Weights: 6.375 and 6.625 ounces.

 

Shirt #3

The third T-shirt was found on the curb near a bus stop on a busy street.

It had been there a while, that was obvious, but the weather has been dry so the shirt wasn't deeply dirty. This was a Simply Abandoned shirt--left behind by accident or just discarded because it was no longer useful. It's a small size, although not a child's size--I'm guessing that someone came home without his shirt and got in trouble with mom. The edges of this shirt were very worn.

Stats: Faded deep gray with a motorcyclist design. The tag was cut out. Weight: 5 ounces.

A Question: Are There Places Where There Are No Abandoned T-Shirts?

A number of people have told me that they have never seen clothing on the streets in their neighborhoods, whereas I see garments and bedding of all sorts everywhere I go. For the record, I live on an arterial on the edge of an upper middle class neighborhood in Berkeley, California--I walk my dog every day, which puts me in a good position to find things. I would postulate that college towns are good hunting grounds for abandoned T-shirts; certainly Berkeley, even the upscale neighborhoods, has a funky shabbiness that contrasts strongly with gated suburban communities. But I've found garments in nice, well-groomed areas of Seattle as well.

I am looking forward to seeing whether geographical, sociological, or seasonal patterns show up in this project.

The Abandoned T-Shirt Project: The Beginning

I have noticed that Berkeley residents love to place things out on the curb that they think someone else could use: chairs, monitors, dishes, shoes, books, clothing.... This abundance of goods made me think about the material things in our lives, where they come from and where they end up. The more I thought about global trade, sweatshops, resource depletion, overabundance, and the related horsemen of environmental and cultural despair, the more I wanted to use textiles and knitting to make some sort of artistic statement.

You can already see that I do a lot of thinking.

In particular, I thought about the humble t-shirt, a simple and supremely comfortable garment--we've all got a drawer full of them, right? We take them for granted, treating them rather cavalierly yet they have an alarming global impact.

I've decided to attempt an art project based on abandoned t-shirts. You've seen them, huddled and dusty alongside the freeway, left lonely under the bleechers, forgotten on the bus stop bench. The "Wild Castoff T-Shirt" (as my friend Linda calls it, "the single shirt on a lonely road or in an environment that tells a story"). From this Earth Day to the next I will be gathering up t-shirts, washing them, cutting them into strips, and knitting with them. I'm not entirely sure what direction this knitting will take! I'm going to keep track of where the t-shirts were found, taking photos if possible, preparing a map, gathering whatever statistics catch my attention--weight, manufacturer, color....

And I'd love your help. If you happen upon a t-shirt, please send it to me along with information about where you found it--and a photo if you are the kind of person who knows how to use your cell phone camera. Just leave a comment and I'll send you my contact information.

This might be silly or it might be emotionally meaningful--I confess that I am unsure where my conviction that this is worth doing comes from, but I feel a need to forge ahead.

I'll keep you posted here!