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No One Wants Used Clothes Anymore (2018)
- vfclists 6y agoSecondhand clothes are not good for the development of African countries. There were strong industries in many African countries before globalization kicked in. You have this strange situation where Westerners donate free clothes which are sold in Africa and undermine development of local industries. So called NGOs simply do the dirty work of Western corporate interests. The Dirty Business of Old Clothes (Youtube) - https://bit.ly/3g9IuG8 https://bit.ly/3g9IuG8 The U.S. Is Fighting Rwanda Over Trading Used Clothes - https://bit.ly/3op1BPp https://bit.ly/3op1BPp It is even worse with tomatoes - Tomatoes and greed – the exodus of Ghana's farmers - https://bit.ly/3qsLbHG https://bit.ly/3qsLbHG
- bobthepanda 6y agoThe article mostly doesn't talk about this; according to this, the price of new clothing has dropped so substantially that even reprocessing secondhand clothes into new textiles is largely a dying business. With all the environmental issues that entails.
- anonAndOn 6y agoThere is at least one viable alternative for some second-hand fabrics, insulation. I wouldn't use fabric insulation for all applications, but its noise dampening properties make it well suited for interior wall use.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoA lot of charity in other countries can have the effect of undermining local institutions and make the receivers off worse.
- corty 6y agoCharity always creates such vicious circles. While donating for desaster relief is usually good and well, charity needs to be viewed with a lot more suspicion. Teach a man to fish, he will build an economy. Give him his daily free fish, he will be your dependent forever.
- biggestdummy 6y agoThis is a fallacy. Most people enjoy creating/building/earning if they are given a path to doing so. Helping unfortunate, poor, disabled, and even the occasional lazy person is no vice.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago> Most people enjoy creating/building/earning... That's kind of the issue though. At a large enough scale, donations can undermine the value of creation / earning. A new show shop might not have much value in an economy that has a large enough supply of donated shoes constantly thrown into it. Since it's not valuable to build these shoe suppliers, they do not get built. The population becomes dependent on the donations, as existing infrastructure does not exist to support them if the donations suddenly stopped. I believe this is why the original comment separated disaster relief from charity. Giving people their first pair of shoes for free from an external economy may not be necessarily bad, but subsequent pairs hinders growth of a local shoe economy. DISCLAIMER: Shoes are pure example. If you disagree with the idea of this comment, please do not focus on the shoes.
- leetcrew 6y agoI guess it's not quite obvious to me what is wrong with this. as long as people are giving stuff away, why not take it and focus on producing things you can't get for free? it's hard to imagine how the supply of second-hand shoes/tshirts/whatever could crash overnight. if people in rich countries stopped replacing perfectly serviceable goods, they would probably do it slowly enough for the former beneficiaries to start domestic production. purely monetary aid seems like a substantially greater risk. politics could turn off that faucet in an instant.
- free2OSS 6y agoI have an even lower cost industry, Programming/coding/mechanical turk. You can do this on a rpi3. No need for machines, a supply chain, logistics. Sure traditionally this was true, but it's a saturated developed market. Had to take issue with the overly simplified economics here.
- vrperson 6y agoMaybe they should try other lines of business then?
- triceratops 6y agoMaking new clothes isn't good for the environment. It's true for America's environment and it's also true for Africa's environment. > free clothes which are sold in Africa and undermine development of local industries. It makes no sense to waste resources and trash the environment to develop industries.
- ogre_codes 6y agoThe average age of my clothing[1] is probably 5-10 years with some items well over 10 years old. Some of my clothes are legal to drink. The idea of buying clothes then donate them after 6-12 months has always been broken. With growing kids (or if you gain/ lose a bunch of weight) you don't have a ton of choice. For most adults, the only way you can really ensure you have an environmentally friendly wardrobe is by purchasing carefully and keeping clothes until they genuinely wear out. For jeans and good quality jackets, that can be decades. When you donate clothes to St Vinny's (Goodwill/ Salvation Army/ whatever), they keep the best/ resealable clothes and dispose of the rest. A bunch gets dumpstered. The only reason they accept used clothing is because of the small percentage they can actually resell. [1] Excluding underwear and socks!
- starfallg 6y agoIn my experience, the charities usually don't throw those away. Over here in the UK and much of Europe, the charities sell them by the ton to traders that ship them to Africa or other developing countries. Some charities don't even handle them, they enter into a contract with a third party that specialises in the trade that collects the clothes and then pays the charity a fixed amount of money per ton. The whole service is branded, so you would think that you're donating to the charity directly when in fact they are paid by the trader by weight.
- corty 6y agoUsually clothes don't get shipped to developing countries to be used as clothes. They get shredded and used as a source of cotton and other fibres after sorting, e.g. to create stuffing, insulation or paper. Donated stuff is treated the same way, and just the proceeds used as a donation to help the third world. Read the fine print on the used-clothes-bin.
- Nursie 6y agoMy partner is the manager of a red cross shop here in the UK, and it's exactly this - anything not of resale quality (or just too 'personal', like used underwear) goes for 'rag' and they get paid by weight by the rag company. The rag clothes are shredded, IIRC, not sure what for. They also have a book company who have a similar arrangement, they pay a few pence per book, though IIRC they do make use of the books as-is rather than shredding.
- Zelphyr 6y agoAmong many other things, COVID is changing this industry rapidly. Fashion brands have been pummeled and are looking for looking for alternative revenue sources. A friend of mine started ReCircled (https://recircled.com https://recircled.com) to offer a 360-degree solution to fashion brands to help them get a garment recommerce solution implemented quickly.
- waynesonfire 6y agoThis is why I try my best to wear organic fibers. If I can't donate them at least they'll quickly decay in a landfill. A quick google search revealed that synthetic fibers, polyester, spandex, nylon, take 20 to 200 years to decompose.
- elindbe2 6y agoThat also means you can wear them forever though. You could probably wear out 3 cotton items for every one synthetic.
- cultus 6y agoSynthetic clothes shed microplastic particles in the wash. It's actually a significant source of plastic pollution. Cotton is kind of crap fabric and takes enormous amounts of water to grow, but wool and linen are both much more durable.
- tartoran 6y agoAs far as I’ve seen thriftstores and vintage boutiques are actually thriving. My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster and faster and some older clothes have a quality you can’t find anymore, hence vintage has an aura of good quality old stuff. The other end of the theory is that the increasing povery forced people to rummage through thriftstores.
- free2OSS 6y agoI think people forget that "quality" stuff survives, but there was always a cheap alternative to "quality". The olden days were not better. Obligatory-"survivorship bias"
- tartoran 6y agoThat is true but now even more expensive clothes are designed to break faster, back in the day expensive stuff was good durable stuff. For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. I’ve seen myself throwing out shoes that were in perfect condition or still very wearable if it wasnt for the hole in the heel. A lot of classic shoes that one used to be able to take to a shoe repair shop are now unfixable for this reason
- free2OSS 6y agoBe careful not to confuse expensive brands for durable stuff.
- tartoran 6y agoDon’t worry, I don’t. Maybe when I was younger Id make that mistake but luckily never bought expensive clothes in label only. If I had the money to throw around I’d have probably fallen into that trap. But Im having more and more difficulty finding that real good classic shor that is well made and is maintainable/fixable and which is a good fit and could be happy with for a couple of years. I live in NYC and the market here is innundated in low quality crap. Even an expensive brand such as Prada doesn’t have well made shoes, they’re made to not last very long
- mmastrac 6y agoIn the distant past, old clothes used to be gathered and turned into rag paper [1]. It's a shame that we use so many synthetics now as that probably drastically reduces the re-usability. Perhaps we could add the funguses that decompose plastics into the mix and create a full-circle clothing-to-paper or fabric process. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag-and-bone_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag-and-bone_man
- fakedang 6y agoOld clothes are still used to make paper in many developing countries.
- solarmist 6y agoThanks for this! This makes the song[1] by the White stripes make so much more sense. I didn't realize rag and bone man was a particular thing, I thought it was just something similar to what was called a gypsie lifestyle or similar in the past. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epHneMeLyis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epHneMeLyis
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ComputerGuru 6y agoI believe this is also the real reason why newspapers are sometimes called "rags" - although now it's been retconned into a a derogatory term. Cotton paper was way more expensive than pure wood-pulp paper, and far superior to it in terms of clarity, resolution of printed material, and durability.
- gambiting 6y agoI mean, we run a medium sized(100+ employees) second hand clothes business in Poland, with few stores bigger than most local supermarkets. Covid hit us hard, but I wouldn't say that "no one wants used clothes anymore". Quite the contrary - in recessions, like the one we're about to enter, second hand clothes are usually booming.
- hndude 6y agoIf you don't mind me asking, what is the name of this second hand clothing business? I will likely be in Poland next year and wouldn't mind checking it out.
- ryanmerket 6y agoAt Goodfair (disclosure: I run Product & Eng), we are based out of the used clothing capital of America -- Port of Houston, TX. It's our mission to rescue these clothes from being sold to international distributors / before they leave our shores, and sell them in thrift/vintage bundles. Our model is a bit unique. We purchase the same 100lb and 500lb bales the international distributors do. We have a team that processes the bales, categorizes the clothes, and then merch/list them in a marketable and fun way on the site. Textile waste is the 2nd largest polluter behind oil & gas. If we can help create a culture of buying second-hand first, we think there's a massive opportunity to put a dent in climate change. We just got some of our first press yesterday. :) https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/amp/Houston-dressed-for-success-as-used-clothing-15770845.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/amp/Houston-dres... tl;dr WE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR CLOTHES. :)
- elindbe2 6y agoCurious what percentage of the clothes you buy actually sell? Anyways, nice website, I might try it out next time I'm looking for clothes.
- Scoundreller 6y ago> Curious what percentage of the clothes you buy actually sell I mean, I guess if it doesn’t sell, they just bale it up again and off it goes to its original destination. Their only cost is the initial sifting and warehousing. And even then, they might be able to sell their pre-sifted inventory at higher prices baled-up for export. Books aren’t too different: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/business/23shortcuts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/business/23shortcuts.html
- elindbe2 6y agoThat doesn't answer the question though, which was what percentage of clothes actually sell. I wasn't asking what happens if the clothes don't sell.
- marktangotango 6y ago
- prutschman 6y ago> Ways to [support a market for longer-lasting clothing] include offering warranties on clothing and making tags that inform consumers of a product's expected lifespan. Yes, please!
- pochamago 6y agoIt's funny to me that this is framed through such a negative lens, when they're basically just saying that ever more people are being lifted out of poverty, to the point where our trash is no longer of value to them. I struggle to believe that old clothes will ever be a top ten most important environmental issue.
- barbs 6y ago> 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. This doesn't bother you?
- forgotmypw17 6y agoNew clothes support sweatshops ... contain toxic dyes and conditioners ... are a huge source of pollution ... are of lower quality year by year (what I've been told by people who are into the scene) See also sibling comment.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago> top ten most important environmental issue. There are other issues, for instance: child labor makes most clothes in Asian countries. The labor is hidden behind opaque international sub-contracting agreements, making it impossible to audit the supply chain. Ethical clothes are expensive to make. Go to US Target store and you can buy a three-pack of "Fruit of the Loom" T-Shirts for about $10, go do Everlane, who explicitly states their profit, cost, and logistics chain, and T-shirts are $20/each. It is still running rampant in the past decade: [1] https://www.panaprium.com/blogs/i/fashion-brands-that-still-use-sweatshops https://www.panaprium.com/blogs/i/fashion-brands-that-still-... [2] https://phys.org/news/2017-06-tackling-child-labour-fashion-industry.html https://phys.org/news/2017-06-tackling-child-labour-fashion-...
- vrperson 6y agoChild labor is probably not caused by the demand for clothes, though. On the contrary, without those jobs, the situation of those families would be even more perilous.
- dang 6y agoDiscussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168410
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- smm11 6y agoI can't throw a rock without hitting a vintage clothing store. Jeans, concert T-shirts, hipster-ish stuff is like gold. No One Wants SOME Used Clothes Anymore, at least in 2018, I think.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoI only want used clothes. Not only is it better karmically, but new clothes are full of offgassing dyes and other synthchems, not great for a human's health. Many I know are going this way too.
- adolfojp 6y agoIt might be a cultural thing or lack a wealth thing but I've never fully understood the concept of second hand clothes. I mean, who gives away used clothes that are still in good conditions? And I'm not passing judgement. I just don't get it. I wear my nicer clothes to go out. When they're no longer nice I wear them around the house. When they get holes or stains in them I wear them to do yard work. After that they either become rags or they go into the garbage. At no point have I ever said "I no longer want to wear this, I'll sell it for a buck and buy something new".
- asdff 6y agoSometimes you change waist size. Sometimes you get a new job and no longer need four blazers in your closet.
- profunctor 6y agoPeople use fashion as a means of expression and art. They might only want to wear an expensive piece my Prada a handful of times before they have gotten all of their enjoyment out of it. Or they may not be able to afford all the types of clothes they want to try and so they sell their nice pieces so they can wear others. It's not about having nice, presentable clothing. It's about experimenting, having fun and expressing yourself. I feel like most of the stuff that goes up on depop is sold by teenagers for whom the 5 euro they get or whatever is a significant amount but lots of adults use trailed because they tried out the Haider Ackerman jacket and it was fine but it costs hundreds and now they want to try something else.
- chrisseaton 6y agoSome things aren't useful for gardening though. I'm not going to garden in a tuxedo that has become a bit scruffy but someone else could make use of, for example.
- adolfojp 6y agoThat's a solid good point. But that still doesn't explain how you end up with t-shirts and shorts at the goodwill.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago> 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. New clothing isn't cheap, there's an appreciable gap between new and used prices that allows an intermediary market to thrive. A t-shirt that's $35 new could be found at Goodwill for $5.
- chadcmulligan 6y agoThere are t-shirts for $3.75AUD at my local Kmart, they don't keep their shape very long though, I have seen some on sale for $2.
- basseq 6y agoOriginal thread from 2018 on this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168410
- ebg13 6y agoI do want used clothes, but the average man who donates used clothing in the US is much fatter than I am so nothing ever fits.
- jaxn 6y agoQuite the opposite. Your sizes are more popular so they fly off the thrift racks. This leaves the unpopular stuff on the racks and many thrift stores don't do a great job of cycling out old product. If you want to find great second hand clothes, figure out when the shops put out new product and shop on those days.
- hypertele-Xii 6y agoI saw an ad for a pair of generic, gray college pants, costing 80 bucks new. What kind of a person pays 80 bucks for a shitty pair of pants for lounging at home, when second hand markets have a huge selection for a fraction of the price?
- christophilus 6y agoMy wife gets most of her clothes on threadup. It’s great. Menswear and boys clothes are much harder to find used. My guess (based on my kids) is that boys are just so rough on their clothes that they are only good for rags when they’re done.
- starpilot 6y agoPoshmark is doing all right. I've bought some Patagonia items at a steep discount.
- thraway12 6y agoThredUp had some juice in the media. Heard about them on Marketplace. Checked it out: they give you as low as 3% for the value of your stuff. https://www.thredup.com/cleanout/payouts https://www.thredup.com/cleanout/payouts
- aasasd 6y agoI want used clothes, but apparently second-hand shops only sell women's clothes now.
- sjg007 6y agoI have a winter coat from when I was 16 that still works great. Ditto for a leather jacket. These are both 25 years old. I even have some old leather hiking boots from that era too that are still in decent shape. I pretty much wear jeans until they disintegrate and they probably only do that due to washing.. the Levi guy said to not wash your jeans ever...
- KozmoNau7 6y agoJeans will wear out from never being washed, too. Dirt, grime and dust collects between the fibers and abrade them. Obviously don't wash your jeans every time you wear them, but once a month if you wear them all the time is fine. Low temperature, gentle cycle, never tumble dry because that really wears out fabrics fast. Consider using liquid wool detergent, since it's more gentle and doesn't have abrasive particles. Another good tip is to wear clothes on alternate days, and let them hang to air out between wears. Give them a good shake before putting them on, that takes care of a lot of dry dirt and dust, reducing abrasion. Steaming works really well for wool and wool blends, for freshening up items that are nominally dry clean only. A clothes brush and a steamer can put off the need for dry cleaning for a long time. Spot cleaning takes care of actual stains and steaming loosens the fibers so they release a lot of the dirt stuck to them. Plus it should kill off most of any bacteria, too. And don't buy Levi's, their quality is mediocre now.
- smithza 6y agoMy wife and I have decided buying used clothes when we cannot afford sustainable, ethical clothing sources, is the best way to boycott unethical clothing sources.
- Proven 6y agoWhy would they? As we all know everyone deserves "decent" clothes and State needs to ensure the Fed buys enough T-Bonds to make it possible to borrow ever more so that everyone who can't earn enough can still get sufficient amount of money-for-nothing to buy decent clothes. Obamaphone is a good recent example of how "rising expectations" work.
- zshrdlu 6y agoA couple of East African countries resolved to stop importing used clothes, one of the reasons being to boost their own local textile industries. They were almost all pressured out of their resolve (except Rwanda IIRC). Modern Opium Wars. So you see it doesn't matter that they don't want used clothes, they will bend to the might of America.
- gpmcadam 6y agoTell that to Depop
- bergstromm466 6y agoNoone in the elite wants to examine the exploitative capitalist relationships that support fast fashion The True Cost (2015) documentary trailer: https://youtu.be/OaGp5_Sfbss?t=31 https://youtu.be/OaGp5_Sfbss?t=31
- chiefalchemist 6y agoA better headline would be: No One Wants _The Inconvenience of Shopping for_ Used Clothes Anymore Put another way, selling used clothing online is difficult; the overhead significantly more than new clothes. For example, every used item is unique, a one-off. Therefore, all the work that goes into bringing it to market (e.g., photos, description, getting it on the website) must be baked into the margin of that single item. In other words, it doesn't scale. The key would be to find something that does scale, and pairs well with the used clothing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Jemm 6y agoAs an anecdote, here in a building of 400 residences the monthly used clothes donation could fill a large van twice. The clothes used to be donated to local services who distributed them to those in need but starting two years ago those organizations no longer took used clothes. Many of them are so awash in money from rich donors that they buy new clothes and their clients no longer will accept used. The only choice left was to donate to organizations who took the clothes and sold them to a local business who then either sell them locally at a high price (often higher than new) or ship them overseas. Lately even that market has dried up and now used clothes go into the dumpster. This isn't just clothes, but everything from housewares to high end electronics.
- throwawaysea 6y agoIn part this is because of fast fashion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion), which is the industry practice of marketing trendy, cheap, poorly-made clothing at low prices. Brands like H&M are exemplars of this subindustry. These clothes wear out quick, are not timeless in design, and are not suitable for second-hand use. There's also a growing aversion to wearing someone else's clothing due to it feeling 'yucky'. Either way, we have to find a solution since we throw away about 80 pounds of textiles per person in America (https://daily.jstor.org/fast-fashion-fills-our-landfills/ https://daily.jstor.org/fast-fashion-fills-our-landfills/). Only 20% of textiles are recycled (https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-issues-waste https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-issues-waste). Using natural fibers doesn't solve the environmental problems (https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-wast...): > "Natural fibers go through a lot of unnatural processes on their way to becoming clothing," says Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. "They've been bleached, dyed, printed on, scoured in chemical baths." Those chemicals can leach from the textiles and—in improperly sealed landfills—into groundwater. Burning the items in incinerators can release those toxins into the air. Synthetic fibers are even worse in terms of not breaking down easily, released pollutants, and also polluting our waterways as they are shedded (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfibers-plastic-pollution-oceans-patagonia-synthetic-clothes-microbeads https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfib...). It seems the corrective trend in fashion is towards closed loop sourcing, where we are in effect wearing "second hand" clothes that have been remade from old fibers. Right now, it is expensive. But while we wait for technological advances, maybe we just need a shift in mindset - towards buying things that last longer, that degrade more easily, and that cost more (to accommodate recycling). It means we can afford less of other pleasures, but it might be the only way around the problem.
- mcswell 6y agoI'm thinking with covid restrictions--and the probable continuation of work from home much of the time even post-covid--that there will be less reason to buy fancy new clothes, and used clothes will be just fine for those of us lucky enough not to have to go in to work all the time. Last summer, I was wearing ragged shorts in my home office much of the time, which I wouldn't dream of doing in the real office. I just have to remember to turn off video if I'm in a zoom and have to get up. Actually, I do dream things like that sometimes...more or less: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotWearingPantsDream https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotWearingPantsD...