Local jobs
Short supply chain
Local businesses
Public report · Summer 2026 pilot
Used clothing has a future here. We proved it.
Twelve weeks, two employees trained in textiles, local businesses. Le Détour tested a simple idea: sort clothing in Quebec City instead of shipping it in bulk to the other side of the world, and build a short-supply-chain business model that creates jobs and economic value here. The results are in the report.
1 in 3
inspected items was resellable according to professional buyers.
6 in 10
resellable items sold locally in under a month.
75%
of client businesses came back to restock.
WHY IT MATTERS
Nearly half of the textiles recovered in Quebec are exported, to markets where the price per kilo has fallen 18% in seven years. Meanwhile, second-hand is growing 2.7 times faster than the clothing market as a whole.
Sources: RECYC-QUÉBEC (2025); UN Comtrade, cited in Économie sociale Laurentides (2025); ThredUp (2025).
What you'll find in the report
Twelve weeks in the field, two trained employees and local businesses that played along. Here's what's in the report.
01. What's really in a donation bag
What resells, what doesn't, and what the donation stream says about our wardrobes.
02. What businesses buy
The categories local businesses actually bought, and how fast.
03. The number that surprised us
And why it turns out to be good news for the model.
04. What's next
Where we're headed, and how we want to get there together with the sector.
The data is in.
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