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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

#151

Post by parenthesis »

Once an item of clothing wears out too much to wear in public, I wear it around the house or sleep in it. During the pandemic I've rarely had to wear `decent' clothes. On video calls I just temporarily put on a non-worn-out top over whatever I'm wearing.

Unfortunately I do have to buy replacement footwear quite regularly (50+ miles on foot per week). But a worn out pair of shoes does for working in the garden, and worn socks as slippers round the house.

So, eventually, my clothes end up in UK landfill, once they are too worn out even for me (which can be after decades).

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#152

Post by chiefalchemist »

> To be sure, the availability of inexpensive clothes isn’t entirely a bad thing. In a country like South Africa, where more than half of people live below the poverty line, demand remains brisk, and some Western castoffs have become wardrobe staples for people who might not be able to afford new clothes.

Ah...not quite. The problem is, these leftovers from The West ultimately undermine the local economy. So, for example, locals can't work in a local clothing factory because there's no market. That market is already monopolized by much more inexpensive donation clothes.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#153

Post by secondaryacct »

sangnoir wrote: post #92
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.

Did shopping become fun because fast-fashion clothes were cheap, or did clothes become cheap because shopping is fun? I'm also e-commerce-adjacent, but I believe fast-fashion (especially synthetics) is bad for humanity. Sure, people are making loads of money[1], but it's an ecological disaster in the making. 1. Me included, but only getting a little. Shein is getting ALL the money.

It s always been a bit fun, I think people at the market 400 years ago liked the bartering and choosing and spending as much the chicken they ended up with.

There's nothing wrong with mercantile pleasure per se. It's probably an incentive/reward mechanism in the brain to encourage comfort.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#154

Post by t-writescode »

hallarempt wrote: post #129
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…

When I was still going through life as a man, I had two dozen white dress shirts (12 short, 12 long sleeved...), three pairs of pants, a suit and summer and a winter jacket. The shirts would still be fine after wearing and washing them a hundred times or more. I replaced them at a rate of four a year... After coming out as trans, getting a new wardrobe was fun, but... It's been a year, and some dresses really fall ap…

Would gothy-style, belt-heavy designs work well here? I imagine Victorian women didn't rotate clothes at the rate implied here. This seems just ... bad

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#155

Post by t-writescode »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #118
gsinclair wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So how do we tackle that, because that's bullshit.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#156

Post by willcipriano »

soneca wrote: post #148
willcipriano wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toms Shoes[0] is the classical example of this. I like the idea of things like Kiva[1] and did 214 loans with them over the years[2] but they have been looking a little sketchy lately. Rather than dumping goods and destroying local businesses I think investment is a better way to improve conditions in developing nations. For example in the US we have farm subsidies that buy up food at above market prices and ship it…

What do you think is sketchy about Kiva lately?

Kiva has always seemed to have people who aren't fans of the model and has had problems in the past[0]. Lately it's been more of a feeling, the messaging has a corporate spin to it that makes it harder to give them the benefit of the doubt. A specific thing is they have done recently made the page where you withdraw funds harder to use, and it seems like they have stopped sending emails to me when I have funds available in my account.

[0]https://blog.givewell.org/2009/11/16/not-our-last-words-on-t...

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#157

Post by stubish »

Ekaros wrote: post #120
_trampeltier wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC China imports chicken feet from places like Australia at a premium, which I think started with lack of supply due to a bird flu. This required the foreign chicken farmers to dramatically improve the conditions of the chickens so that their feet were in good enough condition to sell.

All the chicken gets used, even if just turned into stock powder or fertilizer or chicken feed. I imagine the same goes for all the pig heads.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#158

Post by 8589934591 »

wccrawford wrote: post #141
8589934591 wrote: post #137

I have started buying clothes from USA _because_ they are of higher quality. Even though they are made in my India, they are usually not available for sale here. The quality and variety available for exports is drastically different from what is available for the local market. Mine have lasted at least 2-3 years before I buy a new set of clothes. I wonder why there is a huge churn in USA to keep buying new clothes. I…

I'm an American that doesn't buy new clothes often, but I want to provide my view. My clothes last a lot longer than 2-3 years. To get to the point that they're ragged or faded takes a long time for most of them. (The very cheapest t-shirts from online sites are the exception. I don't buy those any more.) On the other hand, my wife gets great pleasure from getting new clothing. She has a lot more than I do, and still…

Thank you for your reply.

> On the other hand, my wife gets great pleasure from getting new clothing. She has a lot more than I do, and still she buys more. She is genuinely excited about wearing and showing off the new clothes she bought. When she gets a compliment about them, she is very, very happy.

My wife feels the same way. We both have discussed this and have a hypothesis that the compliments for her new clothes is received more often from women (and men sometimes) who belong to the previous generations. We feel this is partially because during their lives buying clothes was more of a luxury than an everyday thing, mainly due to scarcity. Traditionally new clothes have been bought for festivals and kept and cherished for the years to come. This came to around 5-10 new clothes per year. But now we can just buy whatever whenever.

> friends aren't going to compliment the same clothes again. To get those feelings, she needs new clothes.

Another observation we have is that we have been groomed by the previous generation to like newer clothes that we arent able to appreciate the other things in our lives. My wife has a successful business which she started at the start of the pandemic, but this gets a lot less discussion than what she wears or what plants she grows at home. We feel this is also reflected by how the previous generation might have defined self worth for a woman.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#159

Post by 8589934591 »

pasabagi wrote: post #142
8589934591 wrote: post #137

I have started buying clothes from USA _because_ they are of higher quality. Even though they are made in my India, they are usually not available for sale here. The quality and variety available for exports is drastically different from what is available for the local market. Mine have lasted at least 2-3 years before I buy a new set of clothes. I wonder why there is a huge churn in USA to keep buying new clothes. I…

> Is it just more affordable/cheaper to buy than to mend your clothes? I'm not from the US (EU instead) but mending clothes is almost never cost-effective for me, because it's hard to do well, and would cost more than most garments (either in time, or in paying somebody to do it). I still sometimes mend my clothes for fun.

I agree with you. I think I should have been clearer. By mending I meant small tears or threads coming off. Not full blown tears which can just be used to clean your table.
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