According to a publication viewed more than 650,000 times on X, it would be a “new charitable scam”, “the truth about the centers of the Red Cross”. The source of this alleged revelation? The video of a creator of German content, who had the idea of hiding a GPS tracer in a pair of shoes, before placing it in a container of the Bavarian Red Cross and following his journey.
As his video shows, which has become extremely viral and exceeding the borders of the German Internet, the latter go through Zagreb, in Croatia, to finish sold in a second-hand shop in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “It turns out that clothes are not distributed free to people in need. They are sold in retail stores, ”comments the publication that shares the video under titled in French.
Part of the clothes is actually sold
There is no particular reason to think that the video is rigged. However, the German Red Cross has itself communicated on the use of harvested clothes. “There are two different recycling models,” explains the organization on its website. “With the ” recovery model ”, all of the container content is sold to a company. The benefits of this sale are donated to the statutory missions of the Red Cross. The textiles are then sorted by the recycles according to their quality. 45 to 65 % can still be used as clothing and are exported and sold by companies as second -hand goods in different countries. The rest of the clothes collected is either sorted and then sold in the shops of the association, or used “for thermal purposes” or transformed into insulating or cloth materials.
In front of the virality of the video, the Bavarian Red Cross also reacted in a video on Tiktok. “It is true that a large part of the clothes here in Germany, and also in Bavaria for example, are not necessary or their quality is not sufficient to be reused”, communicates the organization, which re -explains why a part is found in stores abroad. “The Red Cross of course receives money for this. […] And this money can for example be used here to help the homeless, for our food banks or in the changing rooms and in many other areas where the Red Cross is active, ”it can be translated from video. The German tiktokeur initially published a second video, recognizing that he was not aware of this process, and taking up the elements of explanation of the organization. He deleted it today, as is the original video.
Clothes collected in France are also abroad abroad
Asked about its operation, the French Red Cross refers to a page of its website. The association indicates there to face “industrial productions which go beyond our logistical treatment capacities”. “This artisanal functioning does not allow our volunteers to sort all of your donations, part of which is put aside and recovered by recyclers approved Refashion [société en charge de « la prévention et la gestion de la fin de vie des textiles d’habillement » en France]at a price ranging from 40 to 130 euros per tonne. The other non -compliant part (stained, torn, etc.) sorted by us is also given in order to be recycled by approved organizations. »»
Only clothing without defects and in good condition are directly sold in the Red Cross shops, or given. The Red Cross article is an “additional information” on the program “On the front” broadcast on France 5 in 2021, devoted to the business of the second hand. The Red Cross ensures “we have never threw into nature the clothes given to us. We also do not sell textile gifts in Africa or elsewhere. »»
The documentary presented by journalist Hugo Clément revealed that only 3 % of the clothes collected in France (notably by the Red Cross) were redistributed in the country, while a large part was sold to manufacturers, sent to sorting centers and then exported internationally, especially in Africa. The show showed that, too, due to an overly large volume of import, too degraded or not suitable for the local climate, a large part ended in wild landfills, as the journalist told in a newsletter. On its website, Refashion said that 90 % of the reusable parts were exported abroad to be sold there, while the clothing recycling containers gradually disappear, in front of the too large quantity of given textiles.
