Many clothing donations end up in African landfills • Hacker News Board

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#71

Post by Nursie » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:26 AM UTC

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #39

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.

It's quite funny reading this sort of myopic bullshit in response to an article about destruction of the natural world due to unregulated commercial activity.

It's not the answer to everything, but it sure is the answer to some things.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#72

Post by Entalpi » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

dexwiz wrote: post #49

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…

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 r…

At the office several of my coworkers use a service in which they rent cloths. Kinda oike Netflix was for DVDs. You pick a few you like, they send them over and next month you send them back. All for a monthly fee.

Someone once told me the average piece of cloth only gers worn 7 times before being disposed of. Dont qoute me on that though :)

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#73

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:29 AM UTC

Many fashion moguls adorn varius "richest people" lists.

I think it's a good rule of thumb to pay close attention to any industry that produces disproportionate number of billionaires. Because there might be some societal or ecological cost involved that the marked should be made aware of with through taxes or regulation.

Fasion and real estate should be some of the prime targets for investigation.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#74

Post by Aerroon » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:39 AM UTC

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…

The answer is "yes". This is part of what makes America (and the rest of the world) so rich compared to the past. A while ago I was looking to buy a small knife for the kitchen and I found a whole pack of them. The average cost of each knife was 60 cents. The meal you prepare with that knife is going to cost more than the knife itself. That just blew me away. Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period.

Food waste is fine though. It's a side effect of food being incredibly abundant. It is the only realistic mechanism to fight hunger. You want food to be so cheap and so readily available that people are willing to easily write it off.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#75

Post by fennecfoxen » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:42 AM UTC

> As it stands, lax customs enforcement — along with spotty infrastructure and the prevalence of cheap Asian imports — has made it difficult for Africa to develop a garment industry of its own.

Local producers are great, but they're outnumbered ten thousand to one by local consumers. How the world would be any better if some of the world's poorest were forced by their governments to pay extra money to buy inferior clothes, while some small-time politically-connected tycoon profited from it? That's not really how prosperity works.

Scale back your consumption here in the US, go ahead, that's fine, but let's not pretend that the bales of clothing smuggled over the border into South Africa are harming anyone but the comfortable.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#76

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

gexla wrote: post #31

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 th…

> Just as the pandemic accelerated global cooperation and change, so could the climate issue.

Not to be negative but how did the pandemic do anything but prove we’re pretty bad at cooperation ?

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#77

Post by User23 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #20

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.

The recycling industrial complex is a total mess in general. American recycling also gets dumped on South East Asia (mainly China if memory serves) where much of it is just waste. There's a reason recycling is the third R, and it should primarily take the form of other people reusing your stuff anyway - not throwing items in a specifically coloured bin and calling it a day.

China isn't part of Southeast Asia[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#78

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:54 AM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #75

> As it stands, lax customs enforcement — along with spotty infrastructure and the prevalence of cheap Asian imports — has made it difficult for Africa to develop a garment industry of its own. Local producers are great, but they're outnumbered ten thousand to one by local consumers. How the world would be any better if some of the world's poorest were forced by their governments to pay extra money to buy inferior cl…

>Local producers are great, but they're outnumbered ten thousand to one by local consumers. How the world would be any better if some of the world's poorest were forced by their governments to pay extra money to buy inferior clothes, while some small-time politically-connected tycoon profited from it?

Employees of local producers are great too, the theory I always hear is that people getting paid in an area stimulate more economic activity. So I mean you should take that idea apart more as it is pretty much established wisdom.

That said how do you know the products would be inferior? Cheap Asian imports are generally of poor quality, it seems strange that the locally made clothes would not be at least equal to that but actually inferior! Donated clothes that westerners have worn are probably going to be inferior since after all they were worn and were probably cheap Asian imports to begin with.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#79

Post by chii » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:56 AM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #74

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…

The answer is "yes". This is part of what makes America (and the rest of the world) so rich compared to the past. A while ago I was looking to buy a small knife for the kitchen and I found a whole pack of them. The average cost of each knife was 60 cents. The meal you prepare with that knife is going to cost more than the knife itself. That just blew me away. Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the m…

> Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period.

modern industrial production is mind bogglingly large scale. It required over 200 years of continuous investment (in aggregate) to achieve, however, so it was not cheap. And we reap that progress today.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#80

Post by cko » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:58 AM UTC

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.

What about 1.5 pieces per week, including underwear? Seems more likely.