I’ve got some old clothes that I’d like to unload. I know that on certain nights you can chuck them on the garbage truck but the thing is that they’re still very wearable. Where can I take them so that those in need can get them?
Do you live in Taipei?
Scattered around Taipei are clothing donation bins put up by Buddhist charities. Or you could go to the Tzu Chi donation center at the southeast corner of Jianguo and Bade Roads.
[quote=“Chris”]Do you live in Taipei?
Scattered around Taipei are clothing donation bins put up by Buddhist charities. Or you could go to the Tzu Chi donation center at the southeast corner of Jianguo and Bade Roads.[/quote]
I do live in Taipei, around Nanjing/Dunhua. How do I recognize one of their boxes? I’ve heard that other boxes are run by people who simply wash them and sell them for profit. I’d like to avoid that.
I can’t speak for Taipei, but here in Changhua, the clothing donation boxes are blue metal boxes about 6’ high, and are to be found outside schools and hospitals, plus a few random places. I’d imagine Taipei would be similar.
While it’s better to donate to a charity that re-distributes the clothes for free to those in need, I can’t imagine that many people would be getting rich by selling them for a profit. I’d guess it’d be more like the recycling people who collect cans, bottles etc and make some money from them, rather than the trendy, used clothing stores in the west.
In Taipei they can usually be found near parks… they are tall metal green boxes.
If you want to have some fun you could rig them up like scarecrows and hang them from your clothesline or trail them behind your vehicle at night. It’s ghost month, you know.
And the boxes usually have 回收衣服 or something similar printed on them.
Tzu Chi donation center sounds about right.
Meeting those friendly volunteers collecting and sorting garbage is btw. a good opportunity to see that there are people in Taiwan who care about the environment and make an effort to make Taiwan a better place to live.
If the clothes are really still nice, we give ours to the Vietnamese girls or the Filipinas or other foreign workers. They seem to appreciate them very much.