Context: How second-hand clothes became a global waste debate

Claims that wealthy countries are dumping unusable clothing on poorer ones have influenced headlines and international policy. But the evidence behind some of the most widely repeated claims has proved uncertain and contested. If those claims lead to restrictions on clothing that could be reused, the consequences could extend to livelihoods, circularity and efforts to reduce emissions.

In August 2021, Australian broadcaster ABC published Dead White Man’s Clothes, a report from Ghana featuring The Or Foundation. It reported that an estimated 40 per cent of imported second-hand clothing was worthless on arrival and ended up in landfill. The story gave international visibility to a powerful message: clothes donated with good intentions were becoming someone else’s environmental burden.

But the certainty of that message has increasingly been challenged. Research examined by Reuse News does not securely establish that large shares of second-hand imports go directly to disposal. Some studies report substantially lower waste levels; others measure different things from the problem described in the headlines.

That gap between the prevailing account and its evidential foundations is why Reuse News began investigating.

A disputed picture of the trade

The Or Foundation’s work at Kantamanto, Accra’s large second-hand market, helped frame discarded clothing as an issue of global injustice. Its campaign against “waste colonialism” argues that importing communities should receive funding to manage the waste associated with the trade.

Industry representatives have pushed back against the portrayal of their trade as a means of dumping waste. Exporters and importers argue that they supply paying customers with reusable products, and that influential waste estimates misrepresent what happens in their markets. Ghanaian trade representatives have publicly challenged both the prevailing picture and the definitions behind it.

Their commercial interest makes those arguments worth examining, rather than accepting at face value. The same scrutiny should apply to the claims they dispute.

What is actually being measured?

A central difficulty is that “textile waste” can describe several different things: clothing unsuitable for use when it arrives, items left unsold at a market, or garments discarded after further use.

Those distinctions can disappear as findings move from research into headlines and policy discussions. Evidence of clothing at a dumpsite does not, by itself, establish that it arrived in the country as waste.

Reuse News has examined the studies, traced recurring figures and conducted field reporting to ask a specific question: how well established is the claim that substantial quantities of unusable clothing are being exported as reusable goods? Our investigation found that the available evidence did not substantiate the scale commonly described.

Why the answer matters

The debate has reached the Basel Convention, where governments are considering how international waste controls should address textiles, including the distinction between reusable clothing and waste.

Getting that distinction wrong could carry environmental costs. Reuse can reduce demand for new clothing and the resources and emissions associated with producing it. If restrictions make continued use more difficult, some of those benefits could be lost. The outcome depends on how the rules affect actual trade, disposal and purchasing decisions.

The investigations collected here examine the claims, the competing evidence and the policy response. They ask whether the measures being developed address a demonstrated problem—and what happens if the diagnosis is wrong.

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