But local governments must step up

By Yassie Samie, Irene Maldini and Katia Vladimirova

What happens to your clothes after you don’t want them any more? Chances are, you will donate them to shops run by a charity organisation.

There are more and more clothes in circulation, and they are getting cheaper and lower quality. That means the clothes you give away are worth less and less. For charities, this means donated clothes are less gift, more rubbish.

Our new research explores what happens to clothes and other textiles after we don’t want them across nine cities in Europe, North America and Australia. The pattern was the same in most cities. The sheer volume is overwhelming many shops. In Geneva, donations to charity shops have surged 1,200 per cent in three decades. Worldwide, we now dump 92 million tonnes of clothes and textiles a year, double the figure of 20 years earlier.

There’s less and less value in managing these clothes locally. As a result, charities are forced to send more clothes to landfill – or sell bale after bale of clothing to resellers, who ship them to nations in the global south.

Local governments usually handle other waste streams. But on clothes and textiles, they often leave it to charitable organisations and commercial resellers. This system is inherited from a time when used clothing was a more valuable resource, but the rising quantity of clothing has pushed this system towards collapse.

From January, all EU states have to begin rolling out collection services for used textiles. But in Australia and the United States there are no moves to do the same – even though these two countries consume the most textiles per capita in the world.

Historically, textiles were hard to make and hence valuable. They were used for as long as possible and reused as rags or other purposes before becoming waste. These natural fibres would biodegrade or be burned for energy.

But synthetic fibres and chemical finishings have made more and more clothes unable to biodegrade. Fast fashion is only possible because of synthetic fibres such as polyester.

These clothes are often worn for a brief period and then given or thrown away.

What happens to this waste? We looked at textile waste in Amsterdam, Austin, Berlin, Geneva, Luxembourg, Manchester, Melbourne, Oslo and Toronto. In eight of these cities, charities and commercial resellers dealt with the lion’s share of clothing waste. But in Amsterdam, local governments manage the problem.

Across the nine cities, most donated clothes go not to charity shops shelves but to export. In Oslo, 97 per cent of clothes are exported.

The flood of clothes is producing strange outcomes in some places. In Melbourne, charities are now exporting higher quality second-hand clothes to Europe. But we found this forces independent second-hand clothing outlets to import similar clothes back from Europe or the US.

Charity organisations usually export the clothes across the global south. But shipping container loads of second-hand clothes and textiles can do real damage environmentally. Clothing that can’t be sold becomes waste. In Ghana, there are now 20-metre-high hills made of clothing waste.

Uganda has recently banned imports. The second-hand clothing export industry provides work, but its social and environmental impacts have been devastating.

At present, charities and resellers are struggling with managing the rising volume of donations, but they have little room to change.

These clothes are disposed of by consumers who live in cities in wealthier countries. The actions city leaders take can reduce the problem globally, such as encouraging residents to buy fewer new clothes and boosting local reuse, repair and recycling efforts.

We are already seeing grassroots initiatives emerging in all nine studied cities promoting local reuse and repair, with some receiving government support and others operating independently.

To make real change, municipal governments will have to take on a larger role. Here are three ways local governments could take the lead:

Curb overconsumption

Dealing with waste is a major role for municipal governments, and comes with major costs. To reduce clothing waste, cities could launch campaigns against overconsumption by focusing on the environmental damage done by fast fashion – or even banning ads for clothing retailers in city centres.

Boost reuse

Local governments could stop charging charities for the right to collect clothing and instead offer compensation for every kilo of collected textiles to help replace the money they get from sending clothing bales to resellers for export. Cities can also train and support circular economy practitioners, such as those involved in repair and upcycling.

Reduce exports of clothing waste

City leaders could reduce textile exports by recognising them as a waste stream and including textiles in their waste management planning.

One thing is certain – if we keep going as we are, flows of clothing waste will only grow, leading to more waste locally – and greatly increase the waste problem overseas.

Yassie Samie is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University, Irene Maldini is a senior researcher in sustainability, Oslo Metropolitan University and Katia Vladimirova is a Postdoctoral research fellow in sustainability, Université de Genève. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence