After you have exhausted Goodwill and Salvation Army, the next place to look for vintage t-shirts is Africa. ProjectRepat is doing just this. They head to Africa and other developing countries and buy up t-shirts that were originally donated from people in the US. Here is how it works; a shirt is bought in the US, worn a couple of times and then donated to the Goodwill. That shirt is then sold to middlemen who ship the shirts overseas to developing countries and sold in local markets. ProjectRepat then buys those shirts and ships them back to the US to be sold as unique or vintage items. I am still not sure if this is a terrirble supply chain or very effective recycling. Some of the shirts are upgraded supporting local labor while others are sold as is. You can find their website at http://www.projectrepat.org/.
If anyone knows someone from ProjectRepat, we would love to teach them how to make Evozip skins and bags.
