You donated clothing to needy Canadians. So how did it end up in Africa?

W5: Bins for Profit | Part Four W5's Jon Woodward investigates how the removal of unlicensed donation bins can lead to violent reprisals.

This is the first of a four-part investigative series by CTV W5 into the seedy underbelly of the lucrative clothing donation bin industry. W5 correspondent Jon Woodward and producer Joseph Loiero put a spotlight on how some of the clothes Canadians donate to charity end up in markets in Africa.

• Part 2: How a clothing donation bin company passed itself off as a charity while donated items were put up for sale
• Part 3: Heists, arson and a baseball bat brawl: Police allege organized crime fought over clothing donation bins
• Part 4: Threats, slashed tires: How cities are trying to rein in clothing donation bin chaos

It’s a charitable act that many of us don’t think twice about: giving away old clothes and other items to clothing donation bins that seem to pop up at strip malls, near schools, and throughout urban areas in Canada.

And while many bins are connected to the charities who provide those items to needy Canadians, a W5 investigation has shown that some are not.

Using trackers tied to donated items, the investigation tied some apparently charitable bins or bins aimed to support local needy people to for-profit players that took some of our clothes more than 7,400 kilometres away to Tunisia, in Northern Africa.

Those players appear to be competing for the surprisingly lucrative global used clothing market, whose Canadian contribution is worth upwards of $180 million a year.

Our investigation showed that money has attracted figures who have sometimes stolen clothing bins, used deceit or cover of darkness to set up their bins in prized locations against the will of local governments, and even used threats or violence against their rivals or government staff.

“I think that I’m putting money in a clothing bin and it’s going to help a homeless person. You need to maybe have a cold shower and take a reality check,” said Kate Bahen of Charity Intelligence, a Canadian organization that researches and grades more than 800 charities across the country.

“Those are private businesses. Those are private contracts. And that information is not available to the public. Which leads to the question, what’s going on and who are the actors in this business?” she asked.

To get to the bottom of that, W5 set up an unusual trap – with clothing as the bait.

We sewed nine trackers into the pockets of jackets, pants and even into stuffed animals, and placed them in clothing donation bins throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

One bin said clothes inside would be redistributed to “those directly in need throughout the Greater Toronto Area.” The tracker inside did end up in a Toronto-area home, but only after it was sold at a thrift store.

Another bin bore the promise that a donation could “make a child’s dream come true.” The tracker we put inside that one ended up at a store where rags from recycled clothes are sold in bulk.

Two of our items were tracked to an industrial yard just north of Toronto next to a rail line, with baled clothes ready for transport.

And over 10 months, four other trackers inside children’s toys and used clothes went on an even more remarkable journey.

One tracker made its way to Montreal, across the Atlantic to the Italian port town of Genoa, then down to Africa.

That’s where it joined three other trackers, 7,400 km away from where they began, in the North African country of Tunisia.

One of those trackers that made it to Tunisia was put in a bin that was labelled as “used clothing in support of local charities.”

We tracked two to the Tunisian city of Kairouan, to a marketplace where a shopkeeper told us he purchases clothes from North America and Europe in bundles without knowing what’s inside.

“We sell in markets what is fit to be sold, and the rest we distribute,” he said.

Another tracker ended up at a state-owned clothing warehouse south of the city of Sidi Bouzid. A worker there said Canadian clothes are commonplace, along with Italy, France and Slovenia.

As if to underscore the point, the worker was wearing a hat with a Canadian flag, and the logo of an Ontario company.

“A shipping container arrives, typically containing 400 kg of second-hand clothing,” he said. “It’s essentially waste from Western countries.”

None of this is foreign aid, and the customers at those markets are not getting these clothes for free.

But Tunisian politician Mohamed Adel Al Hantati told us while some clothes are sold – much of it ends up as trash.

“Most of these textiles currently end up in landfills or estuaries as waste,” he said.

“A significant portion of textile waste still ends up in waterways,” he said. “Polyester is a catastrophe.”

In the 1990s, Tunisia introduced regulations to manage the import of second-hand clothing, but over time those rules have been eased, leaving traders with questions about what to do with large volumes of unsold clothes, he said.

The clothes from Canadian donation bins are part of a massive global export business. Last year alone, records from Global Affairs Canada show Canadian exporters shipped $181 million in used clothing overseas.

Much of the activity from the bins we investigated takes potential donations away from legitimate charities that raise money through bin donations, such as the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

Charity Intelligence provides some tips about how to make sure your donation is going to a worthy cause, including looking up the charity on the bin with the Canada Revenue Agency, and doing that research in advance.

Near one bin outside a Toronto apartment building, W5 caught up with one Toronto resident, Alley Harnum, who says she donates clothes there around three times a year.

She said she hopes her clothes go “definitely to people that need it. 100 per cent to people that need it.”

When we told her the results of our tracking, she said she would work harder to find a bin that was tied to a reputable charity.

“For profit? I don’t think it’s right. Sorry. We’re donating to give it to people that need it,” Harnum said.

For tips on donation bins or any other story, please email Jon Woodward or call 416 859 8617