But many UK charity shops are now “having to spend money getting rid of waste textiles”, says Dawn Dungate, an independent consultant who advises charities on textile recycling. In December, the rag merchant stopped coming, complaining that it was receiving too much end-of-life clothing (the shop had been donating the best of its unsold textiles to local charities for homeless people, rescue animals and families in need). But the team felt uncomfortable about their unsold clothing going to Ghana, and their scrap to Pakistan, a global hub for textile recycling (that’s standard practice, by the way – the environmental action charity Wrap reports that, of the 469,000 tonnes of used textiles that passed through UK sorters and graders in 2022, 425,000 tonnes were exported).