A few months after the release of a report explaining why the self regulation of the fashion industry is a fairytale, this new Greenpeace Germany report shows that the circularity promoted by global fashion brands is still a myth.
Nowhere is the failure of the fast fashion linear business model more visible than in the countries where many of these cheap clothes end up once their short lives are over: on huge dump sites, burnt on open fires, along riverbeds and washed out into the sea, with severe consequences for people and the planet.
Greenpeace Germany went to Kenya and Tanzania to witness the problem of imported textile waste in these countries and to find out about some of the many local initiatives trying to counter it through their own means. In this briefing, we reveal the role played by imported used clothes called Mitumba in East Africa, and how much of it is of such poor quality that it goes straight to the dumpsite.
Download the Greenpeace Germany report:
Discussion
I can only sigh - sInce when is this news? How many times does this need to hit the headlines and do East African countries have to kow-tow to the West on used clothing? I moved to Uganda, then Kenya then Tanzania during the 1970s,80s and 90s. By 1973 Kenya was placing massive import duty in imoported garments and fabric items in an attempt tp protect its own textile idustries - Kicomi, it's biggest textile factory, closed (it stills tand empty), Raymonds, producing yarns scaled down, etc etc, sheep farmers failed to find markets for wool ... Uganda's cotton industry hit the doldrums, Tanzania fought to restrict importation of second hand clothing... By the late 80s and 90s these countries were sublect to Structural Adjusmentt, their basic production of everything from food to pharmaceuticals and shoes was subjected t to limitation and forced liberalisation of trade allowing imports from the West. British biscuits even replaced locally made cookies of a far superior quality. The battle has gone on ever since. The West needs those countries as dumping grounds for its over-consumption with no regard to their domestic production, clothing industries or livelihoods , and it will contine to do so with no conscience. While western virtue signalling protesters sit on streets clad in petroleum-based garments, natural fibre and fabricmand even food industries in those countries have died.