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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

#111

Post by beaconstudios »

User23 wrote: post #77
beaconstudios wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh yeah

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#112

Post by beaconstudios »

User23 wrote: post #77
beaconstudios wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh yeah, pardon my brain fart.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#114

Post by michaelt »

Sunspark wrote: post #68
dexwiz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I still have a fleece top from 30 years ago and I still have boots from 35 years ago. I have a jacket that is probably close to 50 or more years ago. I have 1 suit, and it's probably also 30 years or more (I seldom wear it, it's basically just for formal events). But yeah, many many items in the 5-20 year range.. plenty of ties 20 years, plenty of tshirts for sure 15 or more years, etc. It's crazy how many clothes wo…

> I have no idea how they can afford to just keep buying.

Clothes can be exceptionally cheap these days.

You might think a basic suit costs $250 and a top quality suit $2500 - but you can actually get a suit for $25 [1]. You too can afford a large wardrobe of clothes that probably won't last very long!

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000529996955.html

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#115

Post by TulliusCicero »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #69

I'm in e-commerce, and reading through this thread I think many people have the misconception that people make purchases to solve problems and want that solution to last as long as possible. In reality, and this is something I spent a long time coming to terms with, much shopping is done because it's fun. Spending money isn't a cost - it's the whole point of the exercise.

It's possible for both to be true. People make purchases that are fun, and they'd like said purchases to solve some problem (and preferably with decent quality).

Like, when I make silly gadget purchases, yes it's fun to acquire the gadgets, but I'd like them to be good products that last too.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#116

Post by _trampeltier »

a0-prw wrote: post #113

Donations of clothes from the West can also undermine local clothing industries. This also happened with "cheap" milk powder from the EU to (iirc) Ghana. Ghana was helping to finance the EU's overproduction of milk.

Also chicken wings. In the EU, nobody wants to eat chicken wings, just the bigger chicken meat parts. So the chicken wings end up for almost free in Africa and also destroyed every chicken farm, because the where more expensive than the chicken from EU.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#117

Post by _trampeltier »

x3iv130f wrote: post #84
t8y wrote: post #22

I think people should really talk about mass market fashion vs luxury fashion. Many people seem to think that buying LVMH clothes or other luxury brands is somehow more ethical when those brands can be even worse. Those brands just sell far fewer items so it's not the same amount. If 99.9% of clothes are fast fashion than 99.9% of left over clothes should also be fast fashion, it's actually more like 100% as luxury b…

I buy mostly luxury brands however there are quite a few tricks with it. Buying luxury off the rack at a well known store is almost always a bad financial decision. I stick primarily to lesser known brands that still maintain good quality. I almost always buy used with just a few exceptions. For some reason it is hard for me to find good pants used or with any sort of discount.

Good pants for men are still not invented yet ..

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#118

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

gsinclair wrote: post #87
dexwiz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers. True. We all reach an age eventually where we care little for the opinions of our peers on such matters. Wisest are those who make that realisation earlier rather than later!

That would limit career prospects in many fields.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#119

Post by krisoft »

chaostheory wrote: post #96
t8y wrote: post #22

I think people should really talk about mass market fashion vs luxury fashion. Many people seem to think that buying LVMH clothes or other luxury brands is somehow more ethical when those brands can be even worse. Those brands just sell far fewer items so it's not the same amount. If 99.9% of clothes are fast fashion than 99.9% of left over clothes should also be fast fashion, it's actually more like 100% as luxury b…

They should try the Disney vault model where they keep unsold goods in a warehouse for an ultra pricey limited release. The difference is that there would be actual scarcity, but yeah maybe warehouse costs would offset any profit. It would be nice to see the experiment though.

The difference is that the Disney “vault” stores information. It can be a simple RAID array. (Or two at different locations to protect against fire etc)

Storing information is ridiculously cheap and easy compared to storing physical goods.

Unsold stock takes up valuable space and if you don’t pay enough to maintain the right circumstances they start to get damaged too.

This is usually not a concern and in modern operations clothing is considered “non-perishable” compared to food but you need to make sure pests and moisture and sun can’t get to them if you want to store it for decades.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#120

Post by Ekaros »

_trampeltier wrote: post #116
a0-prw wrote: post #113

Donations of clothes from the West can also undermine local clothing industries. This also happened with "cheap" milk powder from the EU to (iirc) Ghana. Ghana was helping to finance the EU's overproduction of milk.

Also chicken wings. In the EU, nobody wants to eat chicken wings, just the bigger chicken meat parts. So the chicken wings end up for almost free in Africa and also destroyed every chicken farm, because the where more expensive than the chicken from EU.

Looking at the Chinese cuisine one starts to wonder about other parts. Wings are relatively popular, but what about things like feet, neck, head and organs? What we do with all of them? As clearly they are not even on the full birds.

Same goes for pigs. You can buy some, but the ratio is entirely off.

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