Having worked in a thrift store, about 80% of the clothes donated was deemed not sellable and is tossed in truck and shipped off to a place in PA where they do this type stuff in the article.
If you place great stuff in one bag and lightly used in another and let them know which bag is which it would save them time. They look for wear, armpit stains, neck stains, tears and other stains and smells. :-)
I am not sure how/if they would take donations at this time.
Those are the things that DQ it from even being donated in my book.
A church I attended did a clothing exchange once a year. You brought in what you didn't want and took what you wanted. No cost.
It was open only to church members for the first couple weeks, then the last week, they opened it up to the public.
The welfare rats would come and take bagsful of stuff and then resell it at garage sales, so the public didn't get it until it was well picked over.
Also, I remember one year a family, who was not known for being clean to begin with, brought in several trash bags full of clothes, that absolutely reeked of cat pee.
She said, yeah, the cats ripped open the bags and sprayed it, but here it is anyways.
She left and the church custodian told us he was giving the whole load of their stuff the heave ho.
I was never so disgusted about someone as that family. I agreed whole-hearedtly with the custodian.