Plus il apporte de bacs, plus nous avons de vêtements usagés à trier.

Questions & Answers about Plus il apporte de bacs, plus nous avons de vêtements usagés à trier.

Why do we use à trier here instead of just trier or pour trier?
This is a passive infinitive construction. In French, when a noun is the target or object of the action in the infinitive (the clothes are being sorted), we connect the noun and the infinitive with à. It translates to "used clothes to sort" but structurally works more like "used clothes to be sorted".
Why isn't there an equivalent for "The" at the start of Plus il apporte...?
To say "The more... the more..." in French, you just use Plus..., plus... without any definite article. Adding Le or La before plus in this kind of comparative sentence is a very common trap for English speakers.
Why is it de bacs and de vêtements instead of des bacs and des vêtements?
Because plus acts as an adverb of quantity here, similar to beaucoup (a lot) or trop (too much). In French, expressions of quantity are always followed by the plain preposition de (or d'), never des, even if the noun that follows is plural.
Could I use utilisés instead of usagés to mean "used" here?
Not quite. Usagé specifically refers to things that are secondhand, worn out, or depleted through wear and tear (like old clothes or tires). Utilisé just means that something was put to use for a purpose, without implying it is worn out.

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