Day 100 Musing: Where's All of Our Stuff Going?

I've always got an eye for a "fringe" market, and secondhand stuff surely meets that definition.

A few years back, I became aware that much of what we give away to charity doesn't get sold in the charity stores.   Instead, it gets taken in, delivered to a warehouse, processed/graded according to what should be sold in the store and what should go elsewhere. 

So, though I did look for my former boa at my local Housing Works branch, it was not to be found.

After learning that some of what we donated was sold for rag scrap, proceeds of which the charity could keep, I never felt badly about donating damaged goods (though I would segregate them and mark them as "clean rags") -- though it's best to ask to see if this is the case.  (And I now recycle this stuff via the CENYC textile recycling program.)

(One caveat:  Some of those collection boxes you see in a suburban mall parking lots don't belong to actual charities.)

The recession has fueled growth in this industry.  Click here for an interesting story from NPR this morning about two Big Box second-hand stores up in Nashua, NH.

Good thing I have the flu, because this story would have tempted me to jump into a rental car to drive up and see what it's all about!   Though this lifetime is certainly as a time as any for a trip to Nashua, for now it's better for me to be here, recovering, working and shedding my stuff.