Posted on 05/11/2020 8:32:16 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
A once-virtuous cycle is breaking down. What now?
For decades, the donation bin has offered consumers in rich countries a guilt-free way to unload their old clothing. In a virtuous and profitable cycle, a global network of traders would collect these garments, grade them, and transport them around the world to be recycled, worn again, or turned into rags and stuffing.
Now that cycle is breaking down. Fashion trends are accelerating, new clothes are becoming as cheap as used ones, and poor countries are turning their backs on the secondhand trade. Without significant changes in the way that clothes are made and marketed, this could add up to an environmental disaster in the making.
Nobody is more alert to this shift than the roughly 200 businesses devoted to recycling clothes into yarn and blankets in Panipat, India. Located 55 miles north of Delhi, the dusty city of 450,000 has served as the world's largest recycler of woolen garments for at least two decades, becoming a crucial outlet for the $4 billion used-clothing trade.
Panipat's mills specialize in a cloth known as shoddy, which is made from low-quality yarn recycled from woolen garments. Much of what they produce is used to make cheap blankets for disaster-relief operations. It's been a good business: At its peak in the early 2010s, Panipat's shoddy manufacturers could make 100,000 blankets a day, accounting for 90 percent of the relief-blanket market.
In the early 2000s, though, cash-flush Chinese manufacturers began using modern mills that could produce many times more blankets per day than Panipat's, and in a wider variety of colors. Ramesh Goyal, the general manager of Ramesh Woolen Mills, told me that Chinese manufacturing has become so efficient that a new polar fleece blanket costs a mere $2.50 retail -- compared to $2.00 for a recycled blanket. This has made China the preferred manufacturer of relief blankets worldwide, costing Panipat most of its export market.
So Panipat is changing. In 2013, nobody in town made new fleece blankets. Today, about 50 mills do. Ramesh Woolen Mills added a Chinese-built line in 2016, and thereby boosted its production from 7,000 kilograms a day to 12,000, two-thirds of which is polar fleece. Consumers appreciate the quality, variety and fast production times.
But what's good for Panipat and its customers is bad news for donors and the environment. Even if Panipat were producing shoddy at its peak, it probably couldn't manage the growing flood of used clothing entering the market in search of a second life. Between 2000 and 2015, global clothing production doubled, while the average number of times that a garment was worn before disposal declined by 36 percent. In China, it declined by 70 percent.
The rise of "fast fashion" is thus creating a bleak scenario: The tide of secondhand clothes keeps growing even as the markets to reuse them are disappearing. From an environmental standpoint, that's a big problem. Already, the textile industry accounts for more greenhouse-gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined; as recycling markets break down, its contribution could soar.
The good news is that nobody has a bigger incentive to address this problem than the industry itself. By raising temperatures and intensifying droughts, climate change could substantially reduce cotton yields and thus make garment production less predictable and far more expensive. Industry executives are clearly concerned.
The question is what to do about it. Some brands, such Hennes & Mauritz AB (better known as H&M) and Patagonia Inc., are experimenting with new fibers made from recycled material, which could help. But longer-term, the industry will have to try to refocus consumers on durability and quality -- and charge accordingly. Ways to do this include offering warranties on clothing and making tags that inform consumers of a product's expected lifespan. To satiate the hunger for fast fashion, meanwhile, brands might also explore subscription-based fashion rental businesses -- such as China's YCloset -- or other more sustainable models.
None of these options can replace Panipat and the other mill towns that once transformed rich people's rags into cheap clothes for the poor. But, like it or not, that era is coming to an end. Now the challenge is to stitch together a new set of solutions.
I haven’t owned a new shirt or pants, outside of Christmas presents, in almost 20 years because it is easier and cheaper to buy them from a Church yard sale or garage sale. I guess being a guy makes that simpler since our natural state is looking like we are cheap.
Oh my. My sympathies. I have 11EEE and it’s a PITA to find decent shoes. I get the re-sled all the time. Buy a great pair of classic dress shoes, and with re-soleing (sp) they will literally last 30+ years. I wore a dress suit to work for decades, and good shoes were a requirement.
Nobody wants used clothes? Wait until the effects of this asinine economic shutdown start to be felt.
I wonder if the thrift stores will be overwhelmed by donations when they reopen; causing them to stop accepting for awhile.
In 1977 I was on a merchant ship in Mumbai (Bombay) India.
I saw pallets of donated clothing swung over the side into the garbage scows. The chief mate thought that it was about 2 or 3 tons of American donated clothing that was destroyed.
It’s bullsh!t
The older fabrics are more durable.
Decades of life.
And some things never go out of style.
Just some douchebag hipsters trying to sell you on newer (but not better) mousetraps
Yep. Depends on your clothes and your market. I’m in a town consistently in the top 10 for wealth in the country and they have a few charities with prospering Goodwill-type shops—but with high-quality clothing.
We have NO problem donating or buying from thrift shops. More of the Salvation Army or local church stores rather than goodwill though. Mrs rktman has found things that have original tags for pretty dang cheap. I’ve found some nice yard shirts. Plus she finds things to incorporate into her mosaics.
If there are no used clothes to buy, people are forced to buy new, keeping the workers who produce them in employment.
“I do. All the time. Some of my best stuff is from thrift and Goodwill stores in nice areas.”
This !
I then use the $$ saved for ammo.
One of the reasons thrift stores raised prices is “pickers”.
People go scarf up all the most desirable and designer clothes and resell them on apps like ebay, Poshmark, etc.
They jacked the prices up to take away the profit margin for “pickers”.
I see people running through thrift stores grabbing carts full of clothing that have no fit/style/gender rhyme or reason for the actual person buying them.
Same here.
Anything worn out enough that *I* wouldn't buy it at a thrift store, either becomes rags or goes in the trash.
I only donate stuff that's clean and intact.
>>If there are no used clothes to buy, people are forced to buy new, keeping the workers who produce them in employment.
People in Indonesia, Korea, and elsewhere, USA not so much.
The money funds Salvation Army/Goodwill/etc and they are turning merchandise.
A reseller may be stuck with something for a year or more to get “top dollar”.
The scam is people who go to work for these companies (or have a friend pulling) to get items cheap before they hit the floor.
In the Phoenix area, Seinfeld is on 9-9:30 and 9:30-10 weekdays. That episode was on just last week. Will really miss Jerry Stiller.
As to “recycling” materials, I would think that poly-blend fabrics can’t be recycled and thus are destroyed/dumped.
I drop off at the Goodwill and occasionally buy there too.
I always peruse the mens clothing section. Our local Goodwill store moved to a new location about 2 years ago into a more affluent area. Their quality of donations improved greatly. Plus they have a drive through drop off.
I was in there right before Christmas. It is actually a good place to buy brand new gloves, wool insulated socks that are about half price of other stores. In addition, because they moved to a more affluent suburb, their mens clothing is sometimes really nice. I picked up two pair of 100% wool dress pants for $8/each. They were LL Bean pants that would be over $100 new. I also usually look through the mens sport coats and suits. I have not found an Armani, but I have found other high end 100% wool suits and jackets. Then I just take them to the dry cleaner to be cleaned before I wear them.
The only thing creepy about the mens suits is that you can always tell the old man suits. That somebodies dad just died and they cleaned out his closet. I skip over those.
Yeah, but like the article said, New is cheap. :)
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