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.
It is also a great stock to own. #2 in my retirement account and up double digits since early February (BEFORE the WuFlu crash).
Furthermore, we look like we are cheap, because we are cheap, right?
I volunteered at a Goodwill type store in NYC.
We got rid of fitting rooms because people thought it was funny to defecate in them.
Wouldn’t surprise me. People have had nothing to do for two months but gain weight and clean their closets. =)
Our local charities that except used clothing started receiving donations last week. And they are hiring.
I know quit a number of crafters who would be very happy to have access to the clothing that gets shipped overseas.
Oh yes... it will be a bumper crop when this is over. And I shop there too so I’m looking forward to it.
Watched a movie this month, Kinky Boots.
100 year shoe company. Not moving product anymore.
Dead dad’s inventory was stacking up and son discovers this.
Takes overstock to a retailer as deep discount or cost.
Manager says the public buys the new shoes cheaply.
Shoemaker says that his shoes will last a lifetime and the rubber soled things are cheap and will run out in a year. Retailer says “exactly”.
Disposable society. Cheap crap.
People expect to get a CD player today for the price of a CD itself (or at least a boxed set).
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.
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.
“Green” may be the fashion that goes away..............finally.
No more 18 year old Male Malayasian youth wearing a “Foxy Woman” shirt.
I know that ad. She’s going to pay for her WEDDING (to a Soy Boy white guy) with all of the cash she’s making by selling her designer duds! I have a feeling he doesn’t know just how EXPENSIVE she’s going to be to keep for a while, then divorce, LOL!
AND, she got the same brand shoes that Melania wears for only $100! (Though they don’t mention Melania.)
And here I though paying $10, twenty-odd years ago for a Halston ‘Little Black Skirt’ was my deal of a lifetime! ;)
Having worked in a thrift store, about 80% of the clothes donated was deemed not sellable and is tossed in truck and shipped off to a place in PA where they do this type stuff in the article.
If you place great stuff in one bag and lightly used in another and let them know which bag is which it would save them time. They look for wear, armpit stains, neck stains, tears and other stains and smells. :-)
I am not sure how/if they would take donations at this time.
Check out salaries of leaders of goodwill. I went to their website thinking they had job training. Basically marketing jobs. Their old image of training people to repair things is not reflected by their job offerings.
There is so much waste in all aspects of our lives...think small appliances..electronics...packaging...even food.
Folks,
this is just push news to promote fashions and raising the prices of clothes.
Maybe for adults, but those consignment stores are AMAZING for buying clothes for kids. We’ve saved a small fortune buying very nice clothes for our kids for pennies on the dollar. Same with shoes and cleats for various sports.
Got it. I thought that was what you meant. ;)
Keeping that powder dry.
Back in the mid-80s I was working as a aircraft mechanic at the Galesburg IL municipal airport (one of several jobs I would work to suppliment a farming career that was severely crippled by Mr Jimmah Cahtah a few years before). The FBO was puchased by Porsche, because they were interested in selling completely refurbished Cessna 172 (4 seat, single engine) planes, complete with Porsche engines. The mechanic staff tripled, and a couple of in house aircraft engineers came too. (Long story)
Anyway, as Porsche is a big outfit, they sought to get our group to think and work more efficiently; hence employee/management meetings happened monthly. Then one day came a professional motivator, complete with videos to inspire us. I will mention bits of two of those videos.
One showed a plant that made small bottle gas tanks like those used on a outdoor grill. At one point it showed the workers welding them together. The video’s narrator was shown cleverly wearing a hard hat and safety glasses, raising his voice to be heard over the noise in the plant.
But there was two problems: One, a very faint line would momentarily be seen along the edges of the narrator’s body. Kinda like the weatherman standing in front of a ‘weather map’. He made sure to mention that “this is their actual working pace!”
Two, being an experienced welder, I could see that the welder video ‘behind’ the narrator was definitely sped up, maybe 25%.
The other video that I was not impressed with was about ‘The Limited’; the women’s clothing store chain. The thing that it sought to inpress us with was the dramatic speed with which new fashion designs could go from the drawing board to the overseas sweat shops (they didn’t call them that), and then by 747 to the USA.
The big thing was how the fax machine was able send the clothing patterns instantly and cheaply. The big thing to me was: clothing being made more and more overseas. I left the meeting with a unenthused attitude.
There would be no issue with recycling clothing were it not for the pandemic hoax.
Isn’t it interesting how everything that happens because of it benefits China and their vassals in congress in the long run?
I used to carry bales of used clothes on my ships
From the US to Haiti and Africa.
It was called “pepe”
I believe the shipping cost more than the eight foot cubed bales
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