I have a lot of tshirts from companies I used to work for, but I don’t wear them anymore. I was going to give them away, but I’m worried random people wearing work uniforms might cause problems down the line. Some are construction companies, which I’m not too worried about, but the retail shirts are my concern. Is there a way to remove the text on them so they’re just regular solid colored shirts? I want to say the logos are screenprinted but I don’t think they were, and I can’t remember the name of any other printing processes that aren’t just stitching them in.
Why would it matter? Some people would find those fashionable with the logos. Send them to a thrift shop. If someone is motivated enough to get a shirt with a logo to do something nefarious, they’ll just buy it or have it made themselves.
At my old work (a trucking company) we had a photo in the cafeteria that a colleague made in Africa during their holiday there. The picture shows a truck with our company’s logo still vaguely but unmistakingly visible on the door panels somewhere in rural Africa, Morocco I think. I think that’s pretty awesome.
At least you weren’t these guys:
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/14/us/terror-truck-lawsuit/index.html
I wouldn’t bother removing them.
Just bin em. Go into any charity shop and you’ll see that there’s no shortage of donated tees. The carbon footprint involves in removing the logos is more than it would save if someone were to wear them
Or cut them up and use them as shop towels or whatever before you toss them. At least get a bit more out of them before they contribute to the landfill.
Most of those shirts in my experience are some poly blend. If they’re 100% cotton, they’d be good towels though
A lot of companies will actually have a policy about this, probably to return them
A lot of companies require branded work wear to be returned or destroyed to stop people impersonating their employees. It may not seem like a big deal but a bad actor could use it in any number of ways.
Imagine some one used a branded work shirt to gain access to your granny’s house when she thought they were from a company or service they trusted etc.
Certainly the police and other emergency services won’t want their uniforms in the wrong hands.
In my view it might seem like wastage but there are good reasons to destroy these clothing items, I guess it depends what business you’re in.
Just…. A small point. You can buy the basic police uni from a uniform supply store, no questions asked.
Depending on where you are, patches are a lot harder to come by but most places reasonably accessible. You can buy generic patches on Amazon.
Patches are a collectors item to some people, it’s perfectly legal as long as you don’t actually impersonate a cop.
And if you slap on generic patches that look remotely close, Joe Idiot ain’t gonna know.
I wouldn’t worry about it. If you don’t feel comfortable donating that stuff, then don’t, but I don’t think there’s any easy way to remove the logos without ruining the shirt.
Cut them up and use them for rags, or deface the logo with permanent marker before donation. Clothes that are not fashionable don’t sell. They end up in huge bales. A few are sold to clothing recyclers (cut up for industrial rags or shredded for felt), but most end up in countries where they disrupt the local garment economy, become landfill, or are burned, contributing to air pollution (do search for “clothing in Atacama desert” or “donated clothing in Africa”).
I only donate quality items in good condition that I would buy. Cheap clothing refills my rag bin. If you’re really feeling guilty about not donating used clothing, the best way to assuage your guilt is to become a resale store customer.
Maybe to personal but what companies did you work for? Because there are markets for employee clothing and depending on what or who it is they can earn you big bucks.
I’m mostly worried about the Harbor Freight shirts, cause there’s one down the street from the clothing bin I usually drop stuff in. The construction contractors not so much cause outside of construction sites, no one really says anything about em
If it’s just HF and you didn’t sign any paperwork on the matter when you worked there, it’s probably fine. If you signed paperwork, consult an attorney yadda yadda yadda.
It’d be one thing if you worked in an industry where those uniforms might give you actual access somewhere (police, fire, EMS, etc), but this is not that.
try soaking one of then in bleach overnight. That might destroy it but it also might remove all the colors including logo and solve your problen.
if that worked u can do the same with the other tshirts
