Donating stuff
 

We are doing more cleaning of our home.

We have tons of really good quality clothes that we are not going to wear anymore. Where or what to the Japanese do with them?

In Canada, we have various charities we can donate to or send them to consignment stores to see if they can be sold off.

The consignment stores near our home only accept clothes that are within 2 years old or newer and is branded.

I am looking for a Japanese equivalant of "goodwill" - if there is such a thing. If not, do I just throw it away on burnable garbage day? It just seems to be a waste.

Check the Salvation Army Japan website !

Find a local Hard Off?

Currently many schools are collecting things on good condition to send to Tohoku as part of student led efforts. I would call around to a few places, they may love to have it.

Or they may not.

Give the stuff to a homeless person on the streets in Vancouver (I assume that's where you live) - or an institution that helps them - like a church (unless you're talking about golf shoes or fashion items). Especially cold weather clothing (winter is coming). Old clothes basically aren't worth shipping anywhere. If you really want to help people in need anywhere - send money. It's by far the most useful thing you can donate. Robyn

He lives in Japan now.

Then he should do the same in Japan (we've passed by homeless living on the streets during this trip). Robyn

Yeah right, 120 plus custom men's business suits to hand out to the homeless one by one?

Wouldn't care if they were used by Syrians or other refugees as long as somebody was willing to take them all away at once. We are trying to clean our house not do social service. If by our house cleaning we can help an organization then great.

The Tohoku idea sounds great. Will ask around.

There is a Hard Off fairly near our house, will ask there as well.

Thank you for those who actually give constructive solutions. If there are other ideas, please keep them coming.

NGO JFSA collects clothes to help a school in a slum district in Pakistan.
Info provided in Japanese only.

http://www.jfsa.jpn.org/index.html
How, when and where to send
http://www.jfsa.jpn.org/iruiinfo_ippan_annai.html

Suits have to be dry cleaned to be accepted.

For shipping, I recommend "Yamato Bin" by Yamato. It's a much cheaper alternative for "Kuroneko Yamato no Takkyubin". They charge by weight or volumetric weight only, regardeless of the number of the packages.
http://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/yama...kin/tokyo.html
Delivery date is not guaranteed but just a couple of days more than their regular service.

Malala Yousafzai would smile.

When I moved back to the States, I had a bunch of clothes and household goods that I didn't want to take back with me, so I asked around about how to dispose of them.

Some of the furniture went to newly-arrived gaijin. My landlady had a cousin who had just gotten divorced, so my kitchen items went to him.

An acquaintance told me that there was a Salvation Army in Japan and that they accepted donations. I went there, and sure enough, they were happy to take my unwanted clothes.

You have 120 business suits to give away. OMG :eek:. Is this normal in Japan? Apartments in Japan are rather small. Where do you keep them :D?

FWIW - when my husband gave away business suits - he gave them to people we knew (like the husband of our housekeeper) - who were approximately his size - to be used (with minimal alterations) at events like funerals (these people really couldn't afford to buy nice suits). OTOH - he at most gave away 1 or 2 at a time. I doubt my husband has owned even 50 suits during the course of his life. I personally would recommend gifts like this - to people you know. I don't think business suits are very useful items of clothing for the homeless (whether or not they're refugees). Robyn

Many universities run bazaars where they sell used clothing and other stuff. I would try someplace international and nearby like Sacred Heart and ask for the Miyashirokai (alumini association). They can put the stuff in storage until their next bazaar. More likely to be used and appreciated than if they're distributed as charity to street dwellers.

One thing that bugs me is "Japanese people all live in small apartments." Really?

And when they say "We're sorry, but all the seats are reserved," what they really mean is "Get lost, you gaijin scum!"

In my city, there is an additional monthly collection for used, but wearable, clothes. No idea what happens to them, but they do disappear in normal bags on that day. Check your city hall website to see if they have a similar collection.

Regarding the myth of tiny apartments, newly built housing in Japan is larger on average than in most countries in Europe; suburban sprawl in the US makes that country an outlier in terms of housing size.

Who said average house/apartment sizes in Europe were large?

I think it's very hard to compare - because prices in high density/urban areas around the world tend to be more expensive than prices in low density/non-urban areas. No matter what country you're dealing with.

Regardless - I still think 120 suits is an awful lot of suits - for anyone/anywhere. Does anyone disagree? Robyn

I know plenty of executives that have over 100 suits. My uncle has a whole closet dedicated to them.

Please stop projecting your biases as the norm for everyone.

Please stop projecting your biases as the norm for everyone.

+1

Well that is perhaps food for fodder in the Random Questions thread. How many suits does the average man in Japan own? I personally find the number of 100+ rather unusual from a western businessman's point of view. Robyn

:eek:

120 suits is quite a few, and one would try and believe , exceptional ! There are exceptions to every rule ! And if there were to be any socio-economic exceptions it certainly would happen in a place like Tokyo !

BTW, I own 1 suit, but I am certainly an exception !

Well - there's the old saying - about both martinis and breasts. One isn't enough - and 3 are too many. Perhaps there's a similar observation when it comes to suits :).

And - when it comes to martinis - for those of you too young to remember Dorothy Parker - here it goes:

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.”

Robyn

I initially thought he was saying that he had suits made of 120's and above fabric, not that he had 120 suits, but maybe the latter was his intention.

Anyway, Salvation Army in Tokyo takes donations by takkyubin if you don't want to hike out to their donation center. I've gone that route before. No COD, though, so you have to pay the shipping fee on your own.

Is it more the norm than the exception for people in Japan to own so many suits? Robyn