Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

There is a lot of garbage which should just be burned. Most fast fashion is made of plastic which was made of oil and the fact that the oil spent a little time as a shirt shouldn't be any impediment into turning it into electricity when somebody is done with it. Much cheaper having a local waste-to-power plant than "donating" garbage and shipping it across the planet to places where people don't want it and have to dump it anyway.

It is quite possibly carbon negative in the big picture because it prevents some oil from being burned for power and some oil from being burned for transport and doesn't waste human effort with sorting garbage several times which ends up in a landfill anyway not so unlikely polluting the planet with plenty of microplastics along the way.

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

By that logic, so is the insane amount of waste that's currently in the ocean instead of having been burnt. The forests and grasslands that were cut down for those landfills would've sequestered much more carbon in the long term. Plastics can take anywhere between 50 and millions of years to decompose and they decompose into what? Microplastics? Other chemicals that hardly any lifeform is capable of utilizing?

One thing you quickly observe about Americans after spending enough time on HN is how quickly they'll jump to justify massive amounts of waste with some vague reference somehow tying it to decreasing poverty. Last winter, Lufthansa airlines had 18,000 empty flights just to maintain their airport spots. In 2015 the EU mistakenly classified wood pellets as a renewable energy source. Since then, US exports of wood pellets have tripled, the EU's "renewable energy" makeup has gone from less than 20% biomass to ~60% biomass in 2020.

Waste exists. I don't understand the compulsion people have to somehow bring poverty into the conversation every time someone tries to point it out

Book this is extracted from and the passage is here...

https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-4ODDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=...

They don't seem to have a source. Not linked anyways. Sources might be listed at the end of the book.

ETA: Ah, they have the "source" in "notes." They are quoting a CEO of a retailer, so I guess they wouldn't ask sources. You would need to "fact-check" the CEO. ;)

I suppose you could just skip over all parts of the book which talks about numbers, because it's too much work to track those down to see if they are legit.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runwa...

> According to Jennifer Hyman, the C.E.O. of Rent the Runway, I am not alone. “Every woman has the feeling of opening up her closet and seeing the dozens of dead dresses that she’s worn only once,” she told me recently. Each year, as Hyman is fond of pointing out, the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty per cent of which are seldom worn; twenty per cent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away.

I'm curious what the source is as well. My growth these days amounts to growing wider and then thinner and I'm old enough to have clothes from both periods so there's no need to get more. So on one hand, 68 articles of is only imaginable if new socks are counted in the equation.

As someone with children, however, it actually seems low. Really young children will grow a couple sizes a year. Then you only cycle through an entire wardrobe (summer, fall, winter, spring, bathing suits etc) once every year or two. Eventually they get older but then there's activities, sports uniforms, girl scout uniforms, the latest sports star's jersey or ball cap, and otherwise start to care what they're wearing and want to be part of that decision making process.

So yes, while it's fun to paint Americans as waste engines who throw away clothes because they can't be bothered to wash them or wouldn't dare to be caught dead in something that's already been worn, I think the truth may be a little less sensational than that.

Living with my girlfriend really opened my eyes to how many clothes women go through. She even tries to be responsible about it and sell items to second hand markets, but I still think it’s a bit crazy.

- Women’s fashion cycles much faster then men’s. Office wear is a bit more stable but anything aimed as social settings like weddings may only provide a few opportunities to wear it before it’s out of style. Men can reliably wear a suit for years, but most dresses get only one or two wears.

- Women’s clothes have a much narrower size range. I can gain/lose up to 20lbs and still be in a similar size range. 10lbs for a women means most of her wardrobe no longer fits. Most mens clothes come in 4, maybe 5 sizes. Most womens have at least 6, maybe 8 or even 10 subdivisions. Most sizes are even numbers, so you might find an 8 or a 10, but at smaller sizes you may find 3s and 5s.

- Womens cloths just seem to be flimsier. Delicate fabricates and stitching mean they tear easier. Jeans have high elastic content so they wear our faster. Leggings rip easily. Knits are harder to care for than fleece or sweats.

I’m not trying to justify it, but I think many men, especially those who frequent this forum, probably have closets full of clothes that are 5 or 10 years old. Guys can wear a shirt for years to the point it’s vintage. If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers.