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Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

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181–190 of 245 posts

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#181
The whole commercial system is so full of perverse incentives. It is absolutely horrible what we do to your planet but there is so much momentum behind this. Someone near me loves to throw things away. I kid you not. Mountains of disposables, perfectly good stuff gets replaced just to get something new. And let's not get started about the amount of food that goes into the waste bin even though there is nothing wrong with it other than that an expiry sticker says it is now one day over time.

Personal status report: articles of clothing bought in the last year: 0. Articles of clothing bought in the last three years: still 0. And I don't think I'll be buying any for the next year either and then likely I'll buy some underwear and socks.

But for my kids (who are growing quite rapidly) it is a completely different story and I suspect that that is one factor that pushes up that average.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#182

> the fashion industry is responsible for one-tenth of the world’s carbon emissions, according to the U.N. Environment Program — more than international flights and maritime shipping combined I think we need clothing that lasts longer. If you are clothing shopping for fun, your actions aren't harmless.

Cheap clothing is just cheap as the hidden cost are... Hidden. Cheap labour, cheap material, low quality combined with high emissions and pesticides/toxins that are released mostly untreated.

You've hit the nail on the head. If all these externalized cost were actually included in the price of the product it would raise the price massively and no one would accept today's low-quality ware anymore.

Maybe?

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#183
post #85

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.

Is affluence having things or having work? One of the first big and important sectors for developing nations is tailoring as it is a manufacturing sector that everyone has a need for and requires minimal skill and material. Dumping huge amounts of unwanted clothing on relatively poor countries effectively eliminates one of the most important rungs on the development ladder.

Affluence is having things. The real affluent don't work at all.

The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic buttons are pretty damn useful.

>Plastic buttons are pretty damn useful You are right, but I HATE buttons. I. HATE. Them. If there is one invention that need to be "disripted" it is the button. It is slow to button or unbutton something. If I'm tires and my fingers are wobbly, it suks. I can't button things in the dark. They break. Uuufff My hatred for buttons came about when I had my first borne daughter. There are a lot of infant clothes with but…

velcro is so obnoxious though and magnets can be dangerous (if we’re still talking about children clothes)

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic buttons are pretty damn useful.

Might even include zippers into that also. Basically: reduce reuse recycle The point being materials science gave us a lot of materials that are better performing for a lot of use cases. Consider the amount of single use plastic in the medical field.

if there’s anywhere that single use plastic makes sense it’s the medical field… everywhere else? not so much

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#187
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of food waste happens in the supply chain before you ever get the chance to buy it which then gets attributed to the whole population. I think there are quite a lot larger sources of waste than food or clothing in our economy where things could be engineered to last a lot longer and be more repairable but aren't so they will be purchased more often. (think heavy things: appliances, vehicles, tools, etc) The mos…

I think individual action like not buying a new car doesn't really save much in the production process (it saves only on the consumption side, like less gas being used in driving). A car's required raw material is not going to be mined less because a few people decides not to buy a car - the iron ore and plastics are all going to have been mined at scale (thus, the marginal cost of a few more kgs of material is not a…

You are assuming car companies always run their assembly lines at maximum capacity regardless of demand and you are wrong. Companies absolutely cut production regularly and have forever, not just in extraordinary circumstances.

An example from 2017, long before pandemic complications:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna775956

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#188
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my female relatives truly believe that no outfit should be worn twice, even for men. A piece might be worn a few times with different things, but never the same thing twice. They have even criticized me for wearing the same tie two says in a row or not refreshing my t-shirt colours regularly. And I should have two suits in case I go to a two day event.

Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts. I'd drive your relatives crazy.

>>Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts.

I do slightly better, find a shirt I like, then buy identical set in 5 colors, and I am all set until next years shopping 'spree' of $60 (5x$12)

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#189

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…

Having had my sleep interrupted by a toddler bed wetting situation, I just spent 2 hours typing a novel about the human condition on my phone rather than sleeping, and then slipped and accidently swiped "refresh". Long story short, the reason why Americans buy excessive amounts of consumer goods is because they can and have for 3 or 4 generations and it's culturally normal. There's fleeting happiness from the small reward of dopamine in your brain from spending money, and an economy optimized for it built on top of unprecedented abundance since the late 1940's.

A lot of Americans are uninformed about quality, and are well enough off not to need to be. As an extreme example, a few weeks ago my young nephews were really excited because a "$400" drone was "on sale" for only $100 in limited quantities! "Daaaadddd we HAVE to buy it. We'll use our own money!" Luckily I was there and, as their uncle, have no problem crushing their hopes and dreams. I work on autonomous aircraft professionally, so it was pretty easy to explain thoroughly and painfully (for them) why it was junk. I made it a point for them to understand that despite the fact that they had the money, they couldn't really afford to buy it. If they did, they would have fun for about 90 seconds until it crashed and broke, and then they would have a pile of e-waste and no money.

Adults are generally wiser than children, but still frequently irrational (not to imply that that's a bad thing). My wife orders and returns clothes often times as a way to cope with stress and anxiety. It's several orders of magnitude cheaper and easier than therapy (which is a rather unfortunate state for our society), and her experiences as a child led to her developing a scarcity mindset. She also hates clutter, and will tend to either pack things away never to be seen again or readily throw things away on a daily basis.

I'm fairly opposite. I rarely buy clothes; the average age of any item of clothing I own is probably 10 years. I'll hand sew holes to keep my favorite shorts on life support. My experiences as a child lead to developing an abundance mindset. I appreciate order but don't mind clutter, and like to know I can find something within 10 minutes of looking, even if it's been a few years, because it's exactly where I left it. I don't throw things away without some premeditation, because I bought it with some premeditation.

We have fun together!

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#190

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…

Depends, buying is cheap, so why not - meanwhile also having so much clothes can be annoying. Easier to get rid of them, then sell them and such.

>>so why not

The 'why not' only matters if you care about the planet, buying and replacing things that don't need to be purchased in the first place is horrible for the planet in every conceivable way.

I recycle things when I can, but I am a firm believer that not buying things that won't last or that you don't need - is much much better than separating your plastic and cardboard in the recycling bins - most of which just ends up in the landfill anyway.

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