Tracking Used Clothes' Journey South of the Border

By John Burnett

Published August 29, 2004 at 10:00 PM MDT

Workers sort used clothes from a conveyor belt at the Mextile facility in Matamoros, Mexico.

Many major U.S. charities sell thousands of tons of clothes donated in the United States to brokers who ship them to 156 different countries. Many end up being sold to consumers in poor countries such as Mexico. NPR's John Burnett reports.

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John Burnett

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.