The majority of items passed on to charity shops are not of sufficient quality to be resold, MPs have found

Charity shops are knocking back throwaway fashion items due to their poor quality.

Concerns about the quality of items being produced by major retailers on the high street have been raised by MPs.

Westminster’s Environmental and Audit Committee said that items being sold for as little as £2 mean that shoppers discard clothes quickly, but that often they are of too poor a quality to be resold by charity shops.

Committee chairwoman Mary Creagh MP said: “Charity shops can’t be the dumping ground for the high street’s little secret – much of what they take they can’t sell because of the quality, and it’s very difficult to recycle the fibres.

“They are turning it away as they can’t sell it, so fabric either goes to Europe or the developing world. It’s disrupting markets in other countries.”

The committee found 235 million garments were sent to landfill last year in Britain, and heard from the charity Textile Reuse and International Development (Traid) that only a fraction of goods earmarked for recycling or charity shops were acceptable for redistribution.