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Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

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Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#31

Post by gexla »

Hopefully the climate change issue could motivate to change this. Even if this stuff is piling up in a place sight unseen from the origin, it's still coming back to that origin in ways which we don't well understand.

Just as the pandemic accelerated global cooperation and change, so could the climate issue. If the US wanted to shut down this problem, regulators could find the key spot to put a bullet into. Ideally the US would take the responsibility that comes with globalism after nuking the world with trash.

Trash is how I view everything I buy. I'm walking into a store to buy trash. It doesn't matter that I still wear a belt daily which I have had for 15 years and much of my clothes are seriously straining from overuse. It still goes to trash eventually. If I take it to my grave, then I'm trash wrapped in trash. When I first stayed in a developing country, there was no trash service for much of the region. If you wanted to get rid of something, you burned it. Today I do all my shopping considering what it would be like to burn it. Car shopping would be so much fun.

Don't think it matters what we do individually. This needs to be an urgent thing taken at levels where people actually have power to change things.

Also, I think the issue is that this is essentially a scheme to cheaply get rid of trash. You could probably pay these importers to take the trash and it would still be worth it. "You mean, you'll pay us to take our trash?! Thank you so much for solving that nightmare of a problem for us. This was looking REALLY expensive for us to deal with in our own country."

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#32

Post by dillondoyle »

hilbert42 wrote: post #7

That's conspicuous consumption gone mad, it seems to me too many people have far too much disposable income. What is it about people that they cannot be content with their clothes in that they have to change them long before they're worn out? This is fashion gone mad. I never throw out clothes, and I can keep the same items for many years - I've still got jeans, BD dungarees, etc. that I bought over 20 years ago. Whe…

A lot of the super cheap stuff from Shein is so utter shit quality it won't last more than a few wears.

And it's almost all plastic.

I can't stand synthetic fabrics I feel like if people were exposed to real materials they would learn it feels better and last longer. And is fashionable. Real wool, nice cotton, silk. It lasts a long time if it's constructed & woven well.

I don't know if it's actually better in terms of co2 but sustainable livestock and cotton seem better than plastic.

I would bet a lot of the typic HN 'dude engineers' don't even know their shirts are plastic.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#33

Post by blaaaaa99 »

Weird article.

Poor people get good condition, fashionable recycled clothing for a few cents, and this is somehow a bad thing?

Does africa really need to be in garment production? Could they compete with vietnam/bangladesh?Banning imports and mandating locally produced clothing is likely just going to lead to forcing poor people to pay 10x more with no improvement or even worse quality.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#35

Post by Avshalom »

halpert wrote: post #13

The weird part of this isn’t that fast fashion generates a lot of trash. Almost every part of the American lifestyle generates tons of waste. The strange part is that the US strong arms African countries into buying the “donated” garments from textile recyclers. I’ll be throwing my used garments directly into the landfill in the future.

One of the great talking points of capitalism is that competition breeds efficiency, so no: the complete decoupling of production from demand is at least A weird part.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#37

Post by smnrchrds »

HFguy wrote: post #24
deathanatos wrote: post #19

> Today, the average American buys 68 new items of clothing per year. > “You wonder, do people in America have so much money that they can just wear things once and then throw them away?” I uh… I too would like to know. What scares me is that the use of whatever demographic is causing that average has to be way higher than the actual average, but this feels like it has to be bimodal. And there are lots of these numbe…

I don’t believe that the average American buys 68 pieces of clothing a year. I’d like them to share the source of that. The author doesn’t offer one that I saw. TBC, I think wearing something 3-4 times and discarding it is horrible.

I imagine they are counting everything, e.g. counting each sock as a separate item of clothing. Otherwise, there is no way the AVERAGE is 68 items per year.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#38

Post by BurningFrog »

The article describes a world of affluence, reaching deep into the poorest parts of Africa. Gone are the days when people would have to be naked when they washed the only piece of clothing they owned.

Somehow this eradication of third world poverty is bad. Because everything is bad if you want to think of it that way.

Just one point: Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#39

Post by bloodyplonker22 »

scotty79 wrote: post #8

Regulate fashion. For example you might make destruction or stockpiling of unsold clothes a crime. Also ban exporting clothes that were manufactured abroad.

"Regulate this, regulate that", it's the socialist/communist answer to everything. Sooner or later, they'll be yelling to regulate when I can use the toilet for water saving purposes.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#40

Post by hilbert42 »

dillondoyle wrote: post #32
hilbert42 wrote: post #7

That's conspicuous consumption gone mad, it seems to me too many people have far too much disposable income. What is it about people that they cannot be content with their clothes in that they have to change them long before they're worn out? This is fashion gone mad. I never throw out clothes, and I can keep the same items for many years - I've still got jeans, BD dungarees, etc. that I bought over 20 years ago. Whe…

A lot of the super cheap stuff from Shein is so utter shit quality it won't last more than a few wears. And it's almost all plastic. I can't stand synthetic fabrics I feel like if people were exposed to real materials they would learn it feels better and last longer. And is fashionable. Real wool, nice cotton, silk. It lasts a long time if it's constructed & woven well. I don't know if it's actually better in terms o…

"A lot of the super cheap stuff from Shein is so utter shit quality it won't last more than a few wears."

Then why do people buy the stuff? I just do not understand their mentality. I buy good clothes to last.

Let me give an example, I have a number of pairs of BD-like dungarees which I bought brand new several decades ago (they're not ex military but a high quality clone thereof). These are my knockabout do-anything in clothes and I'm damned if I can wear them out (sometimes I wish I could as I'm getting tired of the greeny color). What's more, they we dead cheap - about one third the cost of say Levi 501 jeans.

So you can buy cheap good quality clothes if you take the time to look. I'm no gift to sartorial excellence, so I suppose that's an advantage. Give me durability over fashion any day. Besides, that type of clothing is usually much more comfortable and practical than the fashion-laden equivalent.

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