About 16% of donated clothing is resold in Australia. The question is the other 84%

Australia's clothing collection and sorting infrastructure is «largely driven by charitable organisations and designed to support the resale of wearable clothing». That design decision explains everything downstream: «Only around 16% of donated items are suitable for resale within Australia.»

The rest are lower-grade items, «often exported for reuse or recycling overseas, where much of their value is lost to the domestic economy». And for clothing that cannot be worn again the published position is blunter: less than 5% of textiles are recycled in Australia.

A clothing donation is usually recorded as a diversion. On these numbers, one donated garment has roughly a one-in-six chance of being resold domestically, and the alternatives are export or landfill — neither of which is what the internal report usually implies.

This is sharper still for uniforms and workwear, which are the hardest category for a resale-oriented system: branded, often high-visibility or treated, frequently in one size run, and in many cases not permitted to be worn by the public at all.

In 2024, around 3% of imported clothing — 47 million items, 11,700 tonnes — was never sold. Two-thirds of Australians reported not wearing at least a quarter of their wardrobe in the past year.

Most garments are «not designed with recycling in mind»: fibre blends, trims and chemical treatments make recovery difficult and often uneconomical. Clothing was listed as a priority product in 2021-22, and the page states progress since has been limited.

Stop reporting «donated» as an outcome — it is a handover, and the base rate for what happens next is published.

Route by grade, not by intention: wearable, unbranded and in-season is a donation; branded, worn or treated is a recovery contract and should be tendered as one.

Ask for the destination in writing. «Exported» is a legitimate answer; it is not the same answer as «recycled in Australia».

And do the design work upstream: a blended, heavily trimmed garment is a recovery cost decided at the purchasing stage.