We run a processing company for second hand clothing in Poland(as well as our own shops), and while I can't comment on exports to Africa or elsewhere, that's definitely not the case for us. Primarly because we try to make use of absolutely everything we import, but also because few years back certain legislations were introduced that basically prevent companies like ours from producing large amounts of waste, with draconian fines if we do.
So basically we buy clothes from say.....charities in UK or elsewhere, import them to Poland, sort them in our own warehouse, price everything individually, sell in our own shops. Then goods which are damaged/stained/faulty are cut into pieces and sold as cleaning rags(also done in house). Then things which literally cannot be cut into rags are sold further to a company that shreds them for textile filling for car seats etc. And finally, if you have something so utterly destroyed that it's literally useless - say a pair of shoes that have been through mud and disentegrated(why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter), those have to go to the landfill. But I'd estimate that's less than 1% of our entire output.
>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter
This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone else can throw it away? Do they actually feel like some good is coming from donating worthless items? I honestly just do understand this.
To add to what others have said, I think that a lot of people have this idea that "trash = bad" so deeply internalized that they're heavily biased toward only putting things in the bin when there can be no doubt whatsoever that it is garbage.
You also see this when people put greasy paper take-out food containers in the recycling. No, it's not recyclable, and worse, it might further contaminate other things and render them non-recyclable as well. But, when I ask houseguests not to put them in our recycle bin, they seem to be honestly startled by the request. Oftentimes they assume it's because I'm a lax recycler and would rather throw things away than sully my pristine recycle bin with uneaten curry.
If something ever seems like a popular but illogical set of actions by people, the best way to understand it is to look at the incentives that drive it (thanks Freakonomics).
In this case I'd wager two things. As a kid I had family who worked a receiving center for Goodwill. Fairly affluent part of our town near the beach. I remember two distinct things being odd to me then. The items people would bring would sometimes be questionable as to how they'd be useful to the needy, either from wear or function. The other part was most people wanted and received a receipt for their donation. Cue Mitch Hedburg receipt for a donut routine. I was told then when I asked this was an approximate value of their donation and it was used for tax purposes. So one is probably tax write offs.
Throwing things away costs money. When my wife and I moved recently we cleaned house. A second trash can was around 150 a year with limited volume. Trips to the landfill are charged by weight differential. Charity donation is free with the added bonus of someone coming to pick it up if the donation is big enough. We both commented at the time that if we were a little less moral we could easily pack the rubbish in with the donations and save a ton of money. So second is probably convenience with some working the system added in.
> This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking?
From what I've seen, there's a segment of people who feel the urge to donate, but have this elitist attitude towards less fortunate people who need assistance that can be summed up as, "they should take what they are given with a smile." Like, they have this notion that accepting any charity should involve some degree of humiliation. Almost like they feel like a person must not really be in need if they aren't willing to, for example, accept expired food.
It's a really fucking toxic attitude and I suspect being on the receiving end of such behavior can be a cause for a lot of people who need assistance to not seek it out.
My mother works at a women's shelter and this comes up when it comes to donations around Christmas time. People claim they want to donate, but when it comes to donating things women actually need, they will sometimes get all huffy. The women who come to the shelter came there with basically nothing and potential donators sometimes raise a stink about giving women nice toiletry baskets, as though they are entitled to no "luxuries" by virtue of being poor, homeless, and without a support system.
>>Do they actually feel like some good is coming from donating worthless items?
Unfortunately, I believe people are encouraged to donate everything no matter the state, because importers like us pay per kg, so a charity that we buy from will get money for those dirty destroyed shoes, even though they do actually go to landfill on the other end. In a way charities don't really care what's in the bags, the heavier the better. That's why recently it's actually a bit more popular to import from Cash4Clothes charities, as they at the very least have a cursory glance through the goods, so you rarely get actual pure rubbish in there. It has other downsides though.
> This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone else can throw it away? Do they actually feel like some good is coming from donating worthless items? I honestly just do understand this.
It's still "good," just not good enough for them, and they don't want the item "to go to waste." Basically, they can imagine someone using it, but it's an unrealistic fantasy.
I think that also applies to freebie crap no one wants.
For myself, I tend to be in the "let the professionals decide what to scrap" camp.
If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? As the OP says, they have various uses for items, so it makes sense to let them handle the sorting through of junk to decide what is ultimately landfill material. Sure, I could educate myself better about the details on what happens once I hand it over, so that time isn't being wasted, but I am, of course, lazy.
I can understand people just dumping everything in the bin because sorting it properly is an overwhelming task.
I recently signed up for Ridwell [1] and pay them to properly dispose of (sort and redistribute) all kinds of waste I could get rid of for “free”. The problem is figuring out where to take everything and then actually getting there in my car. As far as I can tell there isn’t one single drop off point in my area for plastic film, food containers, clothing, electronics, and styrofoam. At some point just putting everything in a bin for $10.00/mo makes a lot more sense.
Muddy boots are an extreme but I have things like ripped shirts that might be repairable or useful as rags or some thing I just can’t think of.
I've seen videos about recycling where they call it "wishcycling" and point to things like lamps and umbrellas tossed in their city's curbside recycling bin. I think the wish is that someone will find a use for it and it will avoid a landfill. In actuality, it can be a waste of someone else's time and money.
I suspect on a large scale over time, post death donations exceed annual donations by quite a bit.
So, old uncle X dies, state fund stops paying his nursing home room in 3 days, after everything of value or mentioned in the will is picked over or set aside, its all gotta go somewhere and somewhere is three relatives with trailers driving to goodwill.
There's simply not the time to determine his 1970s suit is currently resellable as retro kool, his 1970s neckties are 50:50 resellable, and his 1970s fancy dress shoes are simply trash. You've got less than two seconds per item, times up, now help load up the bookcase its all gotta go and the sooner we're done the quicker this depressing job is over. Toward the end, people are like "box of old plates? I don't have time for this toss it on the Goodwill trailer".
Think of his neckties from the 70s, someone doing a 70s school play or costume party or maybe some kind of art exhibit might pay good money for perfect condition, and badly stained goes in the trash, now what about the one in between that's not perfect but better than most people's daily wear? People LARP on the internet about being experts on everything especially apparently clothing resales but we're kinda in a hurry here and my MiL is not an expert on that topic so she's seemingly randomly tossing stuff on piles for trash or recycle or goodwill, I mean she's trying but we as a culture do not license "cleaning up the estate of deceased relatives" so she's just gonna toss stuff semi-randomly.
WRT to hoarding, consider that red necktie thats a little worn and has a tiny stain on it. He wouldn't throw that tie out, because he was married to my long deceased aunt while wearing it 60 years ago, it meant a lot to him ... but not to anyone else and now he's gone. Or that hideous endtable, I mean, sure a 1960s collector might want it if its in perfect condition, but he never threw it out because it worked perfectly well even if nobody post 1980 would consider buying such a thing.
Oddly enough things are simpler with terminal patients. He handed his bible to his sister when he said goodbye so when its time for estate cleanup nobody has to wonder where the family bible is, its been at his sisters house a month ago. I suppose a surprise death might be more work. But, the cancer finally got him so just ship everything in the room that isn't food, to goodwill.
After 700km they're no longer good for running. But they're perfectly fine for walking around and as general footwear. Better shape than a lot of what I've seen folks living in the streets wear.
Someone always takes them within 3 hours of putting them out.
> This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking?
I obviously can't speak for elsewhere but donated goods are a tax deduction in the USA. Now, I do not donate junk but I also do 1-2 donation runs a year. The person who accepts my donations always asks, "Do you want a donation form?" without ever inspecting any of the items I am handing them for viability. Certain items are rejected because they simply cannot accept them but I have never once in my decades of donating seen someone inspect the items to ensure they are in "good" quality. I've always assumed that people are gaming their tax write-offs by donating their junk.
Clothes only get worse while being used (or cleaned). Thus, all clothes I donate are basically in a condition that I considered "fit-to-wear" just one usage ago. Is it a stretch that someone would be happy to get for free what worked for me just until now?
That being said, after reading articles like this some years ago, I started to throw everything that is actually damaged to the trash (even if it is only a small hole). Maybe I am overdoing it - but I totally understand the mindset of "worst case they will have to trash it in my place".
I’m sure I’m guilty of doing this, but it’s mostly mental laziness. When I’m sorting stuff for donation I’m mostly thinking “keep” versus “donate.” The third category of “throw away” is there and their is a pile, but it’s not one of the two defaults, so unless I notice the article is quite bad I don’t toss it there.
This has also meant I’ve kept clothes that really should have been tossed as well…
I assume a fair amount of donations haven't been sorted through at all by the donators. They likely just already have large bags of clothes that no one wears anymore for any given reason and don't take the time to determine what is and isn't donatable. I know that's what's been done by my family when a family member dies. There's maybe a couple separate pieces that get saved for sentimental reasons (I have my grandpa's wedding tuxedo jacket for example) but everything else pretty much gets dumped into bags and sent off.
This is highly location-dependent, but in some areas, charities will come to collect used items (say a big bag of clothes) free of charge, whereas throwing that same bag out in the trash is costly. So sneaking in a couple of shitty items basically saves money.
Really interesting having just come back from a project in Kenya (and a vacation in Uganda) and one of the really striking things was how many older American/EU clothes were on the street (e.g. sweaters from smaller colleges, shirts referencing mid-sized sporting events for american football). I asked a few of the people I was working with about it and they were quite negative, along with cheap Chinese imports, it has really hurt the domestic textile market to the point where it's basically been wiped out of existence because they can't compete with these imports.
I'm disappointed by the shuttering of textile industries in east Europe. It's not just the manufacturing of finished garments; the raw fabrics that used to come out of there were above and beyond what I can find today even in fancy stores. It's like fabric manufacture centralized behind the scenes until everyone has access to the same thin, cost-optimized material and just puts their brand name on it.
Not sure about that. I knew a few people working in textile, and most of if was made in Eastern Europe because the delays were shorter. They were high-end brands though.
Many African countries actually prevent import of second hand clothing. They can produce clothing locally for quite cheap with local labor (that is cheap), but having literally FREE clothing showing up actually decimates your local industry.
That's why you have anti-dumping laws in the western world.
Fair price locally can generate more work for local people, wealth and redistribution.
Overall, more expensive clothing could also help reducing waste. Cheap fast-fashion fails to significantly improve my life (and, from post, negatively impacts lives).
Yes, because it builds local industry, and textiles is often a key industry in industrialization. It is "easy" automation, builds local tooling and machining demands, and still requires significant further labor to finish which is cheap in that area.
It certainly isn't the only way, but textile production often one of the first industries to get build in industrialization.
Sample size of just me, but I’ve done some volunteering before and the amount of clothes that people donate is huge. But the chance of people in need actually wearing what was donated was small.
The guidance that my group was given was essentially, if it couldn’t be worn to a job interview or a religious service (think men’s chinos and a button up shirt, women nicer pants/skirt and good quality blouse), then throw it away. So I am not surprised.
I think the disconnect here is between the expectations of the donors of who the end users are, and their needs. I would have expected that donated clothes would end up with the homeless, who at least here (NYC) have a need for layers. I would not have expected donated clothes to have resale value, and to merely be functional. The idea that donated clothes should be job interview quality is new to me, and I guess probably none of my current wardrobe would qualify.
In Central America there's quite an industry here that resells donated clothes, used clothes and lightly used return products from stores from the U.S.
Clothes are sorted by brand/quality/size and some of them are job interview or even tv interview quality (after some minor size adjustments).
Earlier this year a group of our senators made a photo op while buying and wearing clothes from those stores. This was obviously a PR move, but quite popular with some voters.
I think you’re correct in very different market expectations. People effected by homelessness would be more interested in layers for protection from weather and I guess wouldn’t care much for how something looks so long as it’s clean/functional.
But the vast majority of people shopping at thrift stores or accepting donations and similar aren’t homeless, they’re just people without much money. They probably have plenty of old tshirts and jeans but might not easily have the money for a pair of khakis and an oxford shirt to wear to an interview for a new job as a retail clerk or cashier, or maybe receptionist at a business.
I would assume that the latter are, thankfully, more common than the former. In most cities.
> The number of garments produced annually has doubled since 2000 and exceeded 100 billion for the first time in 2014: nearly 14 items of clothing for every person on earth
That may not be as outrageous as it seems. The world population may not have doubled since 2000, but the number of people out of deep poverty may have, so of course they'll buy clothing.
That still doesn't excuse fast fashion, which is so wasteful.
I agree that we need a carbon tax. However, mega ships are super carbon efficient. You driving to the store to buy the shirt burned added more carbon than the amount of carbon to ship it from Asia. Our personal vehicles are not efficient. Large, relatively slow moving transport (train, container ship) is. We are a major contributor to all the consumption driven pollution in Asia.
On the other hand commercial shipping produces more hydrocarbon pollution than personal transport. Apparently the pollution from one large container ship produces as much pollution as 50MM cars!
Supply and demand: if it was more expensive, less people would buy it. The reason fast fashion is popular is because it's cheap as hell, which can give a lot of people "buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new". If clothing was as expensive as some decades ago, this experience would only be affordable to rich people as was in the past
And who is going to police this?
All the trinkets and gadgets that we produce all fall in the same category.
>Nest, Echo, Homepod...
Just get up and turn off the damn lights yourself.
>Drones
How many people bought one or two, flew it around for a while and crashed it. Very few are making videos or doing something interesting with them.
>Starbucks
Do we really need separate stores, trucks shipping product all over for someone to have the convenience of a cup of coffee?
>TV/Netflix
If we want to talk about the utility of something, this one is amazing. How much money, time and energy has been spent so that someone can watch a 30 minute show on demand. And we have to keep spending money and energy because the novelty of the old stuff has worn off.
Fast fashion is probably one of the most price elastic goods in existence. And your suggestion to "just don't make it" is patently silly. Are you advocating for a ban on clothes or are you advocating for all manufacturers to willingly stop production and avoid profits? Either of these is detached from reality. A carbon tax is what's needed.
Yet here we are, having achieved what so many claim to want yet fret when achieved: capitalism has increased productivity so high, and costs so low, that we can literally "clothe Africa for free". Why the imperative to take from the productive, when they will freely give generously from their surplus?
Declaring that the cornerstones of modern, industrialized life should not be economically viable is basically calling "game over" and giving up. We can do much better. Climate defeatism should be replaced by climate entrepreneurism. If you don't like something, make something better!
On discussing buying clothes sight unseen the article mentioned:
It’s only once a bale has been opened that the quality of the clothing is discovered. If it’s in good condition, profits can tally quickly to as much as $14,000. But if the clothes are torn or stained, or long out of fashion, their importer may as well have put a torch to their money.
I find it interesting that the clothes they want and will pay money for fits the description of what clothes people in developed nations want too. Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go.
Id be curious to know what other factors impact price/demand. Eg. Brands, materials, styles/designs, etc.
I find the general concept of a business model where you buy unknown items and hope they end up covering your costs pretty interesting. I think jade works in a very similar way - the mine produces boulders of unknown quality, and middlemen buy them on the theory that there's probably good jade in some of them.
The people in the mine don't have time or space or desire to process the boulders, but they can source them. Etc.
Vertical integration would increase the amount of total margin accruing to any one business, but at the cost of turning a focused business into a sprawling one, and increasing the time and risk between aquiring the materials and selling them.
> Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go.
This shouldn't come as a surprise though - people in developing countries are still people, and although they may have a lower standard of living by some index, that doesn't mean they're desperate or don't care about their appearance.
My local charity/recycling bin for clothes/garment explicitly asks for permanently stained or ripped clothes as these can be used as cloth in factories.
I’d be pretty pissed if they just ship it out to the third world and rip off some local business man.
I could have thrown it out locally. No need to ship trash to Africa.
10 years ago or so I saw plastic wapped bundles of shredded cottonwear in the shelves at a mechanic shop I frequented at the time so some of it clearly has taken that path.
Rags were and still are a useful item in industrial shops as they are stronger than paper towels, don't fall apart, and handle sharp metal edges and rough surfaces.
In the old days a "ragman" would come by your shop and buy/sell scrap fabric for rag use. When I was a kid in the 80's I distinctly remember a man pulling up in an old truck and my father buying a few boxes of rags for his machine shop, rummaging through a few boxes looking for the ones with the larger sheets and heavier material.
At home I have a bag in my basement full of old clothing I use for whatever. I even wash them if they're not covered in something which could foul the washing machine (e.g. automotive grease/oil/fuel).
Many of the charities that collect clothing are 501c3 scams.
I sometimes wonder what charities are not scams?
The clothes at Goodwill are not washed.
(I used to recommend donating to Goodwill, but their prices are getting to high. Goodwill provides 1 year of employment to felons, which is great. They pay a unlivable salary though. The only people making a living salary are managers, and regional managers, and of course key members of the nonprofit. My Goodwill, in Marin County, had three managers in a row quietly fired fired theft.)
Readit News
So basically we buy clothes from say.....charities in UK or elsewhere, import them to Poland, sort them in our own warehouse, price everything individually, sell in our own shops. Then goods which are damaged/stained/faulty are cut into pieces and sold as cleaning rags(also done in house). Then things which literally cannot be cut into rags are sold further to a company that shreds them for textile filling for car seats etc. And finally, if you have something so utterly destroyed that it's literally useless - say a pair of shoes that have been through mud and disentegrated(why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter), those have to go to the landfill. But I'd estimate that's less than 1% of our entire output.
This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone else can throw it away? Do they actually feel like some good is coming from donating worthless items? I honestly just do understand this.
You also see this when people put greasy paper take-out food containers in the recycling. No, it's not recyclable, and worse, it might further contaminate other things and render them non-recyclable as well. But, when I ask houseguests not to put them in our recycle bin, they seem to be honestly startled by the request. Oftentimes they assume it's because I'm a lax recycler and would rather throw things away than sully my pristine recycle bin with uneaten curry.
In this case I'd wager two things. As a kid I had family who worked a receiving center for Goodwill. Fairly affluent part of our town near the beach. I remember two distinct things being odd to me then. The items people would bring would sometimes be questionable as to how they'd be useful to the needy, either from wear or function. The other part was most people wanted and received a receipt for their donation. Cue Mitch Hedburg receipt for a donut routine. I was told then when I asked this was an approximate value of their donation and it was used for tax purposes. So one is probably tax write offs.
Throwing things away costs money. When my wife and I moved recently we cleaned house. A second trash can was around 150 a year with limited volume. Trips to the landfill are charged by weight differential. Charity donation is free with the added bonus of someone coming to pick it up if the donation is big enough. We both commented at the time that if we were a little less moral we could easily pack the rubbish in with the donations and save a ton of money. So second is probably convenience with some working the system added in.
From what I've seen, there's a segment of people who feel the urge to donate, but have this elitist attitude towards less fortunate people who need assistance that can be summed up as, "they should take what they are given with a smile." Like, they have this notion that accepting any charity should involve some degree of humiliation. Almost like they feel like a person must not really be in need if they aren't willing to, for example, accept expired food.
It's a really fucking toxic attitude and I suspect being on the receiving end of such behavior can be a cause for a lot of people who need assistance to not seek it out.
My mother works at a women's shelter and this comes up when it comes to donations around Christmas time. People claim they want to donate, but when it comes to donating things women actually need, they will sometimes get all huffy. The women who come to the shelter came there with basically nothing and potential donators sometimes raise a stink about giving women nice toiletry baskets, as though they are entitled to no "luxuries" by virtue of being poor, homeless, and without a support system.
Unfortunately, I believe people are encouraged to donate everything no matter the state, because importers like us pay per kg, so a charity that we buy from will get money for those dirty destroyed shoes, even though they do actually go to landfill on the other end. In a way charities don't really care what's in the bags, the heavier the better. That's why recently it's actually a bit more popular to import from Cash4Clothes charities, as they at the very least have a cursory glance through the goods, so you rarely get actual pure rubbish in there. It has other downsides though.
It's still "good," just not good enough for them, and they don't want the item "to go to waste." Basically, they can imagine someone using it, but it's an unrealistic fantasy.
I think that also applies to freebie crap no one wants.
If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? As the OP says, they have various uses for items, so it makes sense to let them handle the sorting through of junk to decide what is ultimately landfill material. Sure, I could educate myself better about the details on what happens once I hand it over, so that time isn't being wasted, but I am, of course, lazy.
I can understand people just dumping everything in the bin because sorting it properly is an overwhelming task.
I recently signed up for Ridwell [1] and pay them to properly dispose of (sort and redistribute) all kinds of waste I could get rid of for “free”. The problem is figuring out where to take everything and then actually getting there in my car. As far as I can tell there isn’t one single drop off point in my area for plastic film, food containers, clothing, electronics, and styrofoam. At some point just putting everything in a bin for $10.00/mo makes a lot more sense.
Muddy boots are an extreme but I have things like ripped shirts that might be repairable or useful as rags or some thing I just can’t think of.
[1]: https://www.ridwell.com/
So, old uncle X dies, state fund stops paying his nursing home room in 3 days, after everything of value or mentioned in the will is picked over or set aside, its all gotta go somewhere and somewhere is three relatives with trailers driving to goodwill.
There's simply not the time to determine his 1970s suit is currently resellable as retro kool, his 1970s neckties are 50:50 resellable, and his 1970s fancy dress shoes are simply trash. You've got less than two seconds per item, times up, now help load up the bookcase its all gotta go and the sooner we're done the quicker this depressing job is over. Toward the end, people are like "box of old plates? I don't have time for this toss it on the Goodwill trailer".
Think of his neckties from the 70s, someone doing a 70s school play or costume party or maybe some kind of art exhibit might pay good money for perfect condition, and badly stained goes in the trash, now what about the one in between that's not perfect but better than most people's daily wear? People LARP on the internet about being experts on everything especially apparently clothing resales but we're kinda in a hurry here and my MiL is not an expert on that topic so she's seemingly randomly tossing stuff on piles for trash or recycle or goodwill, I mean she's trying but we as a culture do not license "cleaning up the estate of deceased relatives" so she's just gonna toss stuff semi-randomly.
WRT to hoarding, consider that red necktie thats a little worn and has a tiny stain on it. He wouldn't throw that tie out, because he was married to my long deceased aunt while wearing it 60 years ago, it meant a lot to him ... but not to anyone else and now he's gone. Or that hideous endtable, I mean, sure a 1960s collector might want it if its in perfect condition, but he never threw it out because it worked perfectly well even if nobody post 1980 would consider buying such a thing.
Oddly enough things are simpler with terminal patients. He handed his bible to his sister when he said goodbye so when its time for estate cleanup nobody has to wonder where the family bible is, its been at his sisters house a month ago. I suppose a surprise death might be more work. But, the cancer finally got him so just ship everything in the room that isn't food, to goodwill.
After 700km they're no longer good for running. But they're perfectly fine for walking around and as general footwear. Better shape than a lot of what I've seen folks living in the streets wear.
Someone always takes them within 3 hours of putting them out.
I obviously can't speak for elsewhere but donated goods are a tax deduction in the USA. Now, I do not donate junk but I also do 1-2 donation runs a year. The person who accepts my donations always asks, "Do you want a donation form?" without ever inspecting any of the items I am handing them for viability. Certain items are rejected because they simply cannot accept them but I have never once in my decades of donating seen someone inspect the items to ensure they are in "good" quality. I've always assumed that people are gaming their tax write-offs by donating their junk.
That being said, after reading articles like this some years ago, I started to throw everything that is actually damaged to the trash (even if it is only a small hole). Maybe I am overdoing it - but I totally understand the mindset of "worst case they will have to trash it in my place".
This has also meant I’ve kept clothes that really should have been tossed as well…
Trash collection is -- no pun intended -- a mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_ownership_effect
Clearly having this sort of "mental block" is not an extremely common thing.
https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-markets/af...
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/11/250200378/we-f...
That's why you have anti-dumping laws in the western world.
It certainly isn't the only way, but textile production often one of the first industries to get build in industrialization.
What is more humane. Having them depend on the charity and free goods of others, or building their economy to be self sustaining
The guidance that my group was given was essentially, if it couldn’t be worn to a job interview or a religious service (think men’s chinos and a button up shirt, women nicer pants/skirt and good quality blouse), then throw it away. So I am not surprised.
Clothes are sorted by brand/quality/size and some of them are job interview or even tv interview quality (after some minor size adjustments).
Earlier this year a group of our senators made a photo op while buying and wearing clothes from those stores. This was obviously a PR move, but quite popular with some voters.
I think you’re correct in very different market expectations. People effected by homelessness would be more interested in layers for protection from weather and I guess wouldn’t care much for how something looks so long as it’s clean/functional.
But the vast majority of people shopping at thrift stores or accepting donations and similar aren’t homeless, they’re just people without much money. They probably have plenty of old tshirts and jeans but might not easily have the money for a pair of khakis and an oxford shirt to wear to an interview for a new job as a retail clerk or cashier, or maybe receptionist at a business.
I would assume that the latter are, thankfully, more common than the former. In most cities.
That may not be as outrageous as it seems. The world population may not have doubled since 2000, but the number of people out of deep poverty may have, so of course they'll buy clothing.
That still doesn't excuse fast fashion, which is so wasteful.
But tbf at least they're donated en masse.
Seems like 30% of production doesn't find a buyer. Still staggering numbers for how many items the average consumer buys.
Making a t-shirt in China, shipping to the US, wearing it for a few times, and then shipping it to Africa should not be economically viable.
If all low quality fast fashion were $20 instead of $7 across the board people would still gorge themselves on it.
They're not buying stuff for the need to have clothes, they're buying things for the experiences of buying it and the novelty of something new.
>Nest, Echo, Homepod...
Just get up and turn off the damn lights yourself.
>Drones
How many people bought one or two, flew it around for a while and crashed it. Very few are making videos or doing something interesting with them.
>Starbucks
Do we really need separate stores, trucks shipping product all over for someone to have the convenience of a cup of coffee?
>TV/Netflix
If we want to talk about the utility of something, this one is amazing. How much money, time and energy has been spent so that someone can watch a 30 minute show on demand. And we have to keep spending money and energy because the novelty of the old stuff has worn off.
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Declaring that the cornerstones of modern, industrialized life should not be economically viable is basically calling "game over" and giving up. We can do much better. Climate defeatism should be replaced by climate entrepreneurism. If you don't like something, make something better!
We've been selling timber from somebody else's forest for too long. It is time to charge for the trees.
On discussing buying clothes sight unseen the article mentioned:
I find it interesting that the clothes they want and will pay money for fits the description of what clothes people in developed nations want too. Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go.Id be curious to know what other factors impact price/demand. Eg. Brands, materials, styles/designs, etc.
Seed stage VC?
The people in the mine don't have time or space or desire to process the boulders, but they can source them. Etc.
Vertical integration would increase the amount of total margin accruing to any one business, but at the cost of turning a focused business into a sprawling one, and increasing the time and risk between aquiring the materials and selling them.
This shouldn't come as a surprise though - people in developing countries are still people, and although they may have a lower standard of living by some index, that doesn't mean they're desperate or don't care about their appearance.
I’d be pretty pissed if they just ship it out to the third world and rip off some local business man.
I could have thrown it out locally. No need to ship trash to Africa.
In the old days a "ragman" would come by your shop and buy/sell scrap fabric for rag use. When I was a kid in the 80's I distinctly remember a man pulling up in an old truck and my father buying a few boxes of rags for his machine shop, rummaging through a few boxes looking for the ones with the larger sheets and heavier material.
At home I have a bag in my basement full of old clothing I use for whatever. I even wash them if they're not covered in something which could foul the washing machine (e.g. automotive grease/oil/fuel).
https://www.texaid.ch/en/products-and-services/sorting.html
I sometimes wonder what charities are not scams?
The clothes at Goodwill are not washed.
(I used to recommend donating to Goodwill, but their prices are getting to high. Goodwill provides 1 year of employment to felons, which is great. They pay a unlivable salary though. The only people making a living salary are managers, and regional managers, and of course key members of the nonprofit. My Goodwill, in Marin County, had three managers in a row quietly fired fired theft.)