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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

#221

Post by t-writescode »

hallarempt wrote: post #202
t-writescode wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My wife actually buys her clothes from places like Aloria or Celtic Web Merchant, where you can get good, solid cotton and linen dresses. These can keep going for many, many years. But the medieval style doesn't suit me. I want to show off my legs :P (The first dress my wife gave me was one of those, a large, red early medieval style dress. It is incredibly solid, but it makes me feel like an extra from Handmaid's Ta…

Guy running shorts often have draw strings, but I guess then the pants aren’t vacuum formed to your thighs, so that may still mot be what you want? Or… bunches up waistline fabric, bleh.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#222

Post by chaostheory »

krisoft wrote: post #119
chaostheory wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 oper…

> The difference is that the Disney “vault” stores information. It can be a simple RAID array. Storing information is ridiculously cheap and easy compared to storing physical goods.

Yeah, I know which is why I mentioned "warehousing costs" and "actual scarcity".

I still feel that there's an opportunity here, where everyone wins. Collectors and fashionistas get access to something extremely rare, the fashion houses get to keep their existing marketing image while being able to have a "new" offering, and there's less waste.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#223

Post by SnazzZG »

MattGaiser wrote: post #63
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…

Currently wearing a t-shirt I got in high school.

Did you graduate last year or 50 years ago? (Context is important)

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#227

Post by scotty79 »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #83
scotty79 wrote: post #73

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.

I'm sure clothing and footwear profits from slavery and child labor and general exporting of poor working conditions and environmental standards as many other industries have done with globalization, and however connected to the "fashion" industry that is I guess. Are there other problems with it? My mind would have gone to energy, war industry, tech, banking, news media, chemical, health and pharmaceutical, and prob…

Just take a look at what industry most billionaires got rich from. Those are the industries that extract most value from society and environment. And since there's no free lunch there probably is some associated cost no matter how well hidden and surprising.

> My mind would have gone to energy, war industry, tech, banking, news media, chemical, health and pharmaceutical, and probably a lot of others before I thought of fashion though if I was thinking of societal cost.

Sure, there are other heuristics that might point out to other industries worth regulating.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#228

Post by nobodyandproud »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #4

I refuse to fault fast fashion for these issues when the amount of trash free t-shirts given away for free at any conference could probably build a mountain on its own.

A lot of horrible shirts.

Yet one of my favorite t shirts was a black Linux-distro shirt from the mid(?) 1990s with a cool, flaring sun (Caldera?).

I only stopped wearing it when it was so worn out that it ripped in the washer, in the early 2000s.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#229

Post by bongoman37 »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Many clothing donations end up in African landfills

#230

Post by throwawaylinux »

scotty79 wrote: post #227
throwawaylinux wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure clothing and footwear profits from slavery and child labor and general exporting of poor working conditions and environmental standards as many other industries have done with globalization, and however connected to the "fashion" industry that is I guess. Are there other problems with it? My mind would have gone to energy, war industry, tech, banking, news media, chemical, health and pharmaceutical, and prob…

Just take a look at what industry most billionaires got rich from. Those are the industries that extract most value from society and environment. And since there's no free lunch there probably is some associated cost no matter how well hidden and surprising. > My mind would have gone to energy, war industry, tech, banking, news media, chemical, health and pharmaceutical, and probably a lot of others before I thought…

This isn't really how things work.

Let's say Belon Tusk is worth $100 million and invests that into starting a submarine company. Eventually they make a working product they can sell, and that puts the value of the company at $1 billion.

Eventually the second design comes along and revolutionizes submarine industry and reduces the costs that governments (taxpayers) and private industry were paying for submarine voyages significantly. This puts the value of the company at $100 billion and makes Belon a hundred billionaire.

This is not wealth that was "extracted" from anywhere.

The company might be using cheap finance on its valuation, but it's also paying workers, buying goods and services, and selling services into the economy as well. It's most likely creating a net positive for society.

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