“The state of imported second-hand textile has changed dramatically. They used to come as very high quality nice clothes, but now there has been a shift. Those [quality] bales are not coming as frequent.” - Sam Mburu, Founder Dandora Green Recyclers To learn more about the 'waste' aspect emanating from imported second hand clothes, read the below article.
The debate about textile waste has gotten out of hand. A statistics war has kept people hyper-focused on the percentage of waste in secondhand clothing imports -- is it 2%? 5%? 40%? It's the wrong question. The stat that matters is, 100%* of those clothes become waste eventually. More to the point, secondhand exporters have been sounding an alarm that the textile recycling sector is at risk of "imminent collapse." That's a wild thing to hear, because there is no real textile recycling sector. (Otherwise there wouldn't be such a gap that many of the next-gen material startups coming onto the scene are trying to fill?) *estimate Exporters are busy saying there's no waste problem (one goes so far as to refuse to use the word — it's 'the W word' instead). That avoids the reality that the export trade has become a means through which consumers and brands in the Global North pretend to be keeping their clothing out of landfill — when in reality, it’s going to someone else’s landfill instead. Without addressing quality and overproduction, and finding real solutions for what already exists, this is the business model that will continue: sell en masse to countries with thriving secondhand markets, where buyers purchase clothing bales sight unseen, and hope that what is inside will generate them a profit. Thank you so much Bobby Kolade Anna Sacks Francois Souchet Sam Mburu Anja Bakken Riise for talking this through, and Alan Wheeler Steven Bethell for talking about the challenges you're facing. This week on Vogue Business