African Nations to Stop Accepting Secondhand Clothes

According to a recent story from Business of Fashion, several East African nations have decided to implement an embargo on all secondhand clothing imports, saying that the practice hurts their local economies.

“Used clothing in good condition, which entered the supply chain as a donation, undercut new clothes produced locally,” the story says. “To this point, the governments of the East African Community (EAC) — the regional organization that comprises of Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda — plans to outlaw all secondhand clothing imports by 2019, in a bid to boost domestic manufacturing.”

Currently, according to the story, “an estimated 80 percent of Africans wear secondhand clothing,” and well over $1 billion worth of the stuff gets exported from Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries annually.

While this particular cycle is more sustainable than the constant production and consumption of new goods, it has, according to some African nations, added to their already-stark trade deficits, as the vast majority of jobs associated with the importing of secondhand goods involve sorting things, not producing them.

But, as both US and African nations can attest, sorting things can be a major job provider. The US Trade Representative claims that a ban would “put 40,000 jobs in jeopardy” and, according to the story, a single secondhand sorting center overseas can employ 3,000 people annually, while also cutting down on waste, worldwide.

On the flip side, the Council of Textile Recycling estimates that just 20 percent of donated clothing can actually be resold, and the rest “goes into landfills — despite the fact that most textiles aren’t biodegradable.” And it’s on African land, that those non-biodegradable garments are left to rot.

You can read more about it at BoF.

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