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The article describes a world of affluence, reaching deep into the poorest parts of Africa. Gone are the days when people would have to be naked when they washe

The article describes a world of affluence, reaching deep into the poorest parts of Africa. Gone are the days when people would have to be naked when they washed the only piece of clothing they owned. Somehow this eradication of third world poverty is bad. Because everything is bad if you want to think of it that way. Just one point: Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration.

esarbe 5y ago
> reaching deep into the poorest parts of Africa. Yes. We're using the poorest parts of Africa as garbage dump. We're not helping these people prosper, quite the contrary; we're destroying local economies.
colechristensen 5y ago
There is a lot of garbage which should just be burned. Most fast fashion is made of plastic which was made of oil and the fact that the oil spent a little time as a shirt shouldn't be any impediment into turning it into electricity when somebody is done with it. Much cheaper having a local waste-to-power plant than "donating" garbage and shipping it across the planet to places where people don't want it and have to dump it anyway. It is quite possibly carbon negative in the big picture because it prevents some oil from being burned for power and some oil from being burned for transport and doesn't waste human effort with sorting garbage several times which ends up in a landfill anyway not so unlikely polluting the planet with plenty of microplastics along the way.
culi 5y ago
> Just one point: Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration. By that logic, so is the insane amount of waste that's currently in the ocean instead of having been burnt. The forests and grasslands that were cut down for those landfills would've sequestered much more carbon in the long term. Plastics can take anywhere between 50 and millions of years to decompose and they decompose into what? Microplastics? Other chemicals that hardly any lifeform is capable of utilizing? One thing you quickly observe about Americans after spending enough time on HN is how quickly they'll jump to justify massive amounts of waste with some vague reference somehow tying it to decreasing poverty. Last winter, Lufthansa airlines had 18,000 empty flights just to maintain their airport spots. In 2015 the EU mistakenly classified wood pellets as a renewable energy source. Since then, US exports of wood pellets have tripled, the EU's "renewable energy" makeup has gone from less than 20% biomass to ~60% biomass in 2020. Waste exists. I don't understand the compulsion people have to somehow bring poverty into the conversation every time someone tries to point it out
devindotcom 5y ago
This is a really misguided comment. Africa, as far as an entire continent can be generalized, is not as you describe and hasn't been in a long time. Nations there face many challenges, but nakedness is not among them. And this is not even remotely close to "eradication of third world poverty." Rich countries are doing this to avoid filling their own landfills. That there are side benefits for some is good, but it's hardly transformative, especially at the volumes described. And yes, it's sequestration compared to burning them. But the production of these garments at enormous volumes is wasteful and toxic. The culture of waste and disposability, and treating poor countries as sovereign landfills that should be grateful for our luxury garbage, are serious problems.
- kube-system 5y ago
  It wasn't too many generations ago that you'd find poor people in the US with one set of clothing.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I know people who have just about one garment per day of the week and they rotate them. That is it. Not because they are poor --they just don't like change and like the same thing. And, indeed, before the '50's, many Americans had a couple of changes of clothing for the week plus their Sunday clothes. So even we're not that far removed from that time.
  - m0llusk 5y ago
    If you go back that far then you find poor people making their own clothing casually in the short term. A dress for an evening out might be assembled from available material during the day. Ready to wear clothing is a relatively new thing. Only modern people consistently lean on specialists to supply their clothes.
anonymfus 5y ago
>Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration. No. Clothing ending up in landfill produces methane.
m0llusk 5y ago
Is affluence having things or having work? One of the first big and important sectors for developing nations is tailoring as it is a manufacturing sector that everyone has a need for and requires minimal skill and material. Dumping huge amounts of unwanted clothing on relatively poor countries effectively eliminates one of the most important rungs on the development ladder.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Affluence is having things. The real affluent don't work at all. The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers.
  - esarbe 5y ago
    > The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers. Of course it can. You can have a vast mountain of worthless fabric that's not wanted by anyone and still have enough usable and useful pieces of clothing besides that to destroy any local manufacturing.
    - BurningFrog 5y ago
      If people buy and wear the clothing it is, by definition, wanted by them.

esarbe 5y ago

> reaching deep into the poorest parts of Africa. Yes. We're using the poorest parts of Africa as garbage dump. We're not helping these people prosper, quite the contrary; we're destroying local economies.

colechristensen 5y ago

There is a lot of garbage which should just be burned. Most fast fashion is made of plastic which was made of oil and the fact that the oil spent a little time as a shirt shouldn't be any impediment into turning it into electricity when somebody is done with it. Much cheaper having a local waste-to-power plant than "donating" garbage and shipping it across the planet to places where people don't want it and have to dump it anyway. It is quite possibly carbon negative in the big picture because it prevents some oil from being burned for power and some oil from being burned for transport and doesn't waste human effort with sorting garbage several times which ends up in a landfill anyway not so unlikely polluting the planet with plenty of microplastics along the way.

culi 5y ago

> Just one point: Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration. By that logic, so is the insane amount of waste that's currently in the ocean instead of having been burnt. The forests and grasslands that were cut down for those landfills would've sequestered much more carbon in the long term. Plastics can take anywhere between 50 and millions of years to decompose and they decompose into what? Microplastics? Other chemicals that hardly any lifeform is capable of utilizing? One thing you quickly observe about Americans after spending enough time on HN is how quickly they'll jump to justify massive amounts of waste with some vague reference somehow tying it to decreasing poverty. Last winter, Lufthansa airlines had 18,000 empty flights just to maintain their airport spots. In 2015 the EU mistakenly classified wood pellets as a renewable energy source. Since then, US exports of wood pellets have tripled, the EU's "renewable energy" makeup has gone from less than 20% biomass to ~60% biomass in 2020. Waste exists. I don't understand the compulsion people have to somehow bring poverty into the conversation every time someone tries to point it out

devindotcom 5y ago

This is a really misguided comment. Africa, as far as an entire continent can be generalized, is not as you describe and hasn't been in a long time. Nations there face many challenges, but nakedness is not among them. And this is not even remotely close to "eradication of third world poverty." Rich countries are doing this to avoid filling their own landfills. That there are side benefits for some is good, but it's hardly transformative, especially at the volumes described. And yes, it's sequestration compared to burning them. But the production of these garments at enormous volumes is wasteful and toxic. The culture of waste and disposability, and treating poor countries as sovereign landfills that should be grateful for our luxury garbage, are serious problems.

kube-system 5y ago
It wasn't too many generations ago that you'd find poor people in the US with one set of clothing.
- mc32 5y ago
  I know people who have just about one garment per day of the week and they rotate them. That is it. Not because they are poor --they just don't like change and like the same thing. And, indeed, before the '50's, many Americans had a couple of changes of clothing for the week plus their Sunday clothes. So even we're not that far removed from that time.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  If you go back that far then you find poor people making their own clothing casually in the short term. A dress for an evening out might be assembled from available material during the day. Ready to wear clothing is a relatively new thing. Only modern people consistently lean on specialists to supply their clothes.

anonymfus 5y ago

>Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration. No. Clothing ending up in landfill produces methane.

m0llusk 5y ago

Is affluence having things or having work? One of the first big and important sectors for developing nations is tailoring as it is a manufacturing sector that everyone has a need for and requires minimal skill and material. Dumping huge amounts of unwanted clothing on relatively poor countries effectively eliminates one of the most important rungs on the development ladder.

BurningFrog 5y ago
Affluence is having things. The real affluent don't work at all. The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers.
- esarbe 5y ago
  > The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers. Of course it can. You can have a vast mountain of worthless fabric that's not wanted by anyone and still have enough usable and useful pieces of clothing besides that to destroy any local manufacturing.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    If people buy and wear the clothing it is, by definition, wanted by them.