Resale platforms
Meanwhile, resale platforms like Vinted and Depop are advancing the fashion industry’s shift toward circularity – illustrated by a 2023 report from fashion resale platform Vestiaire Collective that found 82% of resale transactions prevent a first-hand purchase.
However, Wheeler warns that resale platforms increase economic pressures on the textile collectors and sorters in the EU by “removing the best quantity and highest value items from the collection stream.”
The strain on the sector is clear. Textile recycling specialist Soex Group recently self-initiated insolvency proceedings in Germany, putting 460 jobs at risk. Soex attributed its insolvency to “adverse market conditions,” highlighting the collapse of traditional markets in Eastern Europe plus heightened competition from Asia.
Wheeler noted that global clothing collection has surged over the past decade, with China now dominating the used clothing export market. But despite the expanding trade across Asia, demand in global markets has not kept pace with supply, complicating distribution of even high-grade items.
If textile waste collection in the EU increases without adequate recycling infrastructure, exports to the Global South may rise. A 2022 report by Greenpeace found that between 45% to 60% of used clothes are exported out of the Global North.
A more recent Greenpeace report also found that nearly half of the used clothing exported from the Global North to Ghana was “unsellable,” ending up in landfill or burned.
However, the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association (GUCDA) disputed these claims, calling the report “sensationalised” and stating the secondhand clothing trade is an “essential part of the circular economy” in Ghana.
During the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) Interactive Textiles event in September 2024, Marlvin Owusu of GUCDA refuted claims that 40% of clothing sent to the Global South goes to landfill. Teresiah Wairimu, Chair of the Mitumba Consortium Association of Kenya, cited a much lower waste figure of 1.89%.
Despite this, Bogu Gojdz from the Clean Clothes Campaign noted that workers in the Global South bear the brunt at both stages – during textile production and sorting used textile exports –trapping them in cycles of poverty.
Gojdz told Ecotextile News that “low pay and exploitative working conditions” in textile manufacturing in the Global South contribute to the large volumes of low-grade clothing in the Global North, which is then “discarded and dumped” back in the Global South.
“Clothing waste ends up in the rivers, along the coasts and in landfill sites far from the countries where the clothes were originally bought, worn and discarded,” Gojdz explained.
