Have you ever wondered what happens to clothing and other donations you make to charitable organizations? TikTok user Moe.Ha decided to find by hiding an AirTag in a pair of sneakers he placed in a Red Cross donation bin in Munich, Germany. He then tracked their travels in the Find My app.
The video, first shared by MacMagazine, shows how he secreted the AirTag into the pair of donated sneakers, then placed them in a Red Cross donation bin in Munich. Over the span of five days, Moe.Ha watched as the sneakers made a few border crossings, making stops in Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, eventully ending up in a resale shop in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That’s nearly 800km away from where he dropped off the shoes.
He decided to take a road trip to the second-hand shop, where he found them for sale, and bought them back. When asked where the sneakers had come from, a store employee told him that they were brought to the shop by her boss, who happens to live in Germany.
@moe.haa Wir haben Schuhe mit einem AIRTAG gespendet… und schau, wo sie gelandet sind! 👟🧐#A#AirTagS#SchuhspendeR#RotesKreuzT#TrackingMissionB#BosnienS#SpendenreiseT#TikTokDokuS#SocialExperimentG#GuteTatW#WeltreiseDerSchuhe#CapCut
So, sounds like a scam, right? Well, it actually isn’t. As explained on the German Red Cross website, this is how their sorting process works:
“We have around 18,000 used clothing containers across Germany. (…) After that, there are two different recycling models. In the “clothing depot model,” the clothing is sorted by the German Red Cross (DRK), and suitable items are distributed to our depots and thrift shops. The surplus is sold to a recycling company. In the “recycler model,” the entire contents of the container are sold to a company. The proceeds the Red Cross receives from this support our statutory missions.”
So, while it may be surprising to find that your used sneakers get around more than you do, its just how everything works, at least when you donate items to the Red Cross.
