About 6 million tons of waste textiles are generated across the country every year. How to balance public welfare and interests
As summer passes and autumn comes, and it’s time to replace clothes with new clothes, there is a strong demand for recycling used clothes among residents. The latest data shows that about 6 million tons of new waste textiles are produced across the country every year, but recycling channels are becoming increasingly confusing. A reporter’s investigation found that as people’s living standards improve year by year, only about 5% of used clothes can be directly used for donation. Can the public’s love accurately reach the needs? Has the recycler disclosed the amount and purpose of donations in a timely manner? How to find a balance between public welfare and other interests? Should used clothes still be used as a public welfare resource in the future? The reporter interviewed public welfare organizations, recycling companies, civil affairs departments, urban management departments, and communities, and conducted a detailed investigation.
Used clothes with nowhere to put them
Currently, there are many online channels for donating used clothes. The reporter used “used clothes recycling” as the keyword on Alipay and found 9 service organizations. These organizations all collect used clothes on the grounds of “environmental protection” and “public welfare” , among which “Beluga Old Clothes Recycling” has the highest usage frequency, showing more than 1.24 million people, “Dangdang Click Old Clothes Recycling” has been used by more than 650,000 people, and “Ouyan Used Clothes Recycling” has been used by 340,000 people. The reporter clicked on the service pages of these organizations and found no announcement of public welfare qualifications.
Offline, many communities in Nanjing have used clothing donation boxes, but residents do not know whether their donations are used for public welfare or are used for profit by some recycling companies. During the interview, there were many “opaque” used clothing recycling bins like this.
Donations must “come with a trace and go with a trace”
During the interview, the reporter found that the donation box of the Nanjing Red Cross Society is currently a popular channel for donating used clothes. On July 26, a transport truck carrying nearly 10,000 kilograms of autumn and winter clothing drove to Luonan County, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province. “When the transport truck comes, we won’t get cold in autumn and winter.” Local children welcomed the transport truck from Nanjing very much. In their minds, a transport truck with the words “Nanjing Red Cross Clothing Donation Center” on its body can be equated with “warmth”.
Tian Bo, director of the center, said that in addition to targeted support, another recipient of used clothes is the needy people in Nanjing. There are 7 “fraternity charity supermarkets” in Nanjing. There are used clothes in the supermarkets. Subsistence allowance households, marginalized households, disabled families, etc. can go to the charity supermarket twice a year to receive 8 pieces of clothing each time.
Transparency is the best spokesperson for public welfare
The person in charge of a well-known public welfare organization in Nanjing said frankly that the reason why they are unwilling to donate used clothes is that there are many problems that need to be solved urgently in the industry. Public welfare is entangled with other interests, and issues of rights, responsibilities, and boundaries are all It needs to be clarified and regulated.
Take the community as an example. The acquaintance community is the main place for offline used clothes donation. A certain degree of trust has been established between social workers and residents, which lays the foundation for donation. The community should also maintain the bottom line of public welfare. Yongxing Community, Lukou Street, Nanjing City, has opened a used clothes exchange station in the elderly activity center as part of the classification of domestic waste.
Transparency is the best spokesperson for public welfare. In April, the amount of used clothes exchanged in Yongxing Community entered a stable state. Liu Yewen, a social worker at the Qingzhulin Social Service Center in the community, said that the current donation amount of used clothes remains at about 100 kilograms per month. Residents exchange 1 piece of winter clothes for 1 point or 8 pieces of summer clothes for 5 points, and the points are then exchanged forMasks, rice, salt and other daily necessities.
“This is the reward obtained by social workers who started to visit villages and households in January 2020 and conduct door-to-door publicity.” Liu Yewen said that at first, residents were not willing to donate used clothes. “Now the residents’ old clothes have a place to go. After being disinfected, they are donated to the children in the mountains. The premise is that the residents trust us, and we will not betray this trust.”
How to balance public welfare and profit
The relevant person in charge of the Charity and Social Work Division of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Civil Affairs told reporters after checking the registration information that the offline and online organizations and companies such as Jieyi Environmental Protection and Feiantants interviewed by this reporter have not registered with the civil affairs department and do not have Public Fundraising Eligibility.
The person in charge made it clear that unlike the recycling of waste items carried out by enterprises with relevant qualifications, the donation and recycling of used clothes and other waste items in the name of charity is a public fundraising activity. According to the provisions of the Charity Law, only organizations with public fundraising qualifications can carry out public fundraising activities after filing with the civil affairs department in accordance with the law.
So is there a qualification threshold for donation boxes to enter the community? Liu Jinchao, head of the garbage management section of the Urban Management Section of Shuangzha Street, Jianye District, Nanjing City, said that it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of the recycling bin itself from the public welfare. Some residential property companies use recycling bins as advertising positions as part of revenue generation. As long as you pay, you can enter. community.
It can be seen that the used clothing donations currently engaged in by many institutions and organizations are not legal public fundraising activities. It is not uncommon in the used clothing recycling industry to see the public welfare banner being abused.
Do public welfare and business have to be in harmony?Ming? Xu Yongguang, chairman of Narada Charity Foundation, said in his book “Public Welfare to the Right and Business to the Left” that the boundaries between public welfare and commerce are gradually blurring. When the two intersect in social enterprises, public welfare and business have become integrated, becoming a new model that makes money while benefiting society. The core element of the third distribution is also the development and expansion of philanthropy.
Today, only 5% of the clothes in the recycling bins of the Nanjing Red Cross Clothing Donation Center meet the standards for direct donation. Deng Qihua, a staff member of Flying Ant, said that recycled clothes cannot meet the needs of donation sites, and more cost-effective clothing factory waste products are repurchased for donation. “Last year, we recycled about 5,500 tons of waste textiles in Suzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing and Shanghai. They were regenerated into hangers, tables, etc. and returned to residents’ lives.” Lu Han, founder of Turtle Dove Recycling, believes that as people’s living standards improve year by year, The reuse of old clothes will be a major problem in the future. The recycling of old clothes should be included in the classification of domestic waste, and charity donations are only a supplementary channel.
Qi Xiaoming, professor and director of the Sociology Department of the School of Humanities and Social Development of Nanjing Agricultural University, believes that used clothing donation and garbage classification and recycling should be clearly divided into two different models: public welfare and profit. If the goal of “zero discarding of used clothes” is to be achieved, the boundaries between the two should be clear, so as to protect residents’ enthusiasm for donations, do good things well, and promote the legal advancement of waste classification and resource reuse. Qi Xiaoming also suggested that the public reporting channel should be opened up and an authoritative inquiry platform should be opened, so that the public can easily check the qualifications of public welfare organizations, and the reporting hotline should be made public, so that the whole process of public welfare donation can be exposed in the “sunshine”.
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