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REUSENews

How did an unverified claim become a global truth and reshape global policy

  • Writer: Thomas Lundkvist
    Thomas Lundkvist
  • 9 hours ago
  • 6 min read

What happens when an unverified and disputed claim becomes the foundation for international policy? As the debate over textile waste in Africa continues, support is growing for new regulations that could reshape the global trade in used clothing. The question is whether policymakers are addressing a real problem or an imagined one, and putting one of the world's largest circular textile systems at risk along the way.


The first two parts of this investigation examined one of the most widely repeated claims in the global textile debate: that large volumes of unsellable or unusable second hand clothing are exported to Africa and quickly become waste.


After more than a year of reporting, research and fieldwork in Ghana, Reuse News found no evidence supporting that claim.



Yet the narrative continues to shape international policy.

From report to reality

The modern textile waste narrative can largely be traced back to 2021.

Images of waste sites in Ghana began circulating internationally. Reports and media coverage described a growing crisis caused by unwanted clothing arriving from Europe and North America. The figure most frequently repeated was that up to 40 percent of imported second hand clothing immediately became waste.

The claim spread rapidly.


It appeared in newspapers, documentaries, NGO campaigns, policy papers and political speeches. Within a few years, terms such as "waste colonialism" had become established parts of the public debate.



According to Jessica Franken, Vice President of Government and External Affairs at the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), one reason may be the way the claim circulated between media and policymakers. "That figure has just been continuously recycled and reused throughout the media and frankly throughout policymakers." Franken describes the process as self reinforcing.


"It's somewhat bidirectional and self reinforcing."


As journalists cited policymakers and policymakers cited media reports, the original claim increasingly became treated as accepted fact.

From narrative to regulation

As part of this investigation, Reuse News did not only examine the evidence behind the textile waste claims themselves. We also examined how those claims travelled through the policy system. Tracing references across reports, policy papers, consultation responses and regulatory discussions revealed a striking pattern.


The same claims, figures and descriptions appeared repeatedly across media articles, NGO campaigns, policy briefings and institutional documents. Yet when those references were followed back to their source, they often led to the same small number of reports and observations published in the early years of the debate.

One example is the widely repeated claim that up to 40 percent of imported second hand clothing in Ghana becomes waste. Reuse News identified the same figure and underlying narrative in publications from influential policy organisations, including the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), where it was presented as evidence that used clothing exports had become a significant waste problem requiring regulatory intervention.

As the narrative gained traction, it increasingly appeared in government discussions and international policy processes. In 2024, France, Sweden and Denmark jointly called for new global rules on textile waste exports through the Basel Convention, arguing that Europe must stop exporting its textile waste problems to developing countries.



What Reuse News found far less evidence of was a parallel effort to independently verify the scale of the alleged problem. Over the same period, the policy discussion appears to have focused primarily on how textile exports should be regulated rather than on whether the central assumptions behind the narrative had been adequately demonstrated.


Reports, consultations and policy proposals frequently referenced one another, reinforcing a shared understanding of the problem while relying on many of the same original sources. By the time the issue reached international policy forums, the central question often no longer appeared to be whether large scale exports of unsellable or unusable second hand clothing had been demonstrated, but how such exports should be regulated.


In effect, a claim became a narrative, the narrative became a policy concern, and the policy concern began shaping regulation.


When narratives become policy

Across Europe and internationally, policymakers are now redesigning how textiles are regulated. The European Union is implementing new textile collection requirements, developing Extended Producer Responsibility systems and tightening rules governing waste shipments.


At the same time, UNEP is developing guidance intended to distinguish reusable textiles from waste, while discussions within the Basel Convention could fundamentally alter how used textiles move across borders.


Taken individually, these initiatives may appear unrelated.

Together, however, they reflect a common assumption: that international flows of used textiles represent a significant waste problem requiring stronger regulation.


The remarkable thing is not that policymakers are acting.

The remarkable thing is how quickly a largely unverified claim became embedded in policy discussions at multiple levels of governance.

The evidence gap

Reuse News found no evidence supporting the central claim that large scale exports of unsellable second hand clothing are driving the waste crisis now informing policy discussions. Yet many of the policies currently under consideration appear to assume precisely that.

According to both Jessica Franken and Alan Wheeler, one striking feature of the debate is that a number of systematic studies have already been conducted, including research carried out in importing countries themselves. These studies generally report figures far below those that dominate public discussion.


"Those studies repeatedly show that the material that might be considered waste is anywhere from 5 to 10 percent, sometimes as low as 1 to 2 percent," says Franken.


A 2023 study commissioned by Germany's development agency GIZ, found that the overwhelming majority of imported second hand clothing entering Ghana remained within the reuse economy. The study estimated that approximately 5 percent became waste immediately upon arrival, far below the figures that have become widely associated with the textile waste narrative.


Alan Wheeler, Chief Executive of the UK Textile Recycling Association, points to a similar pattern.

"The evidence suggests that it's not nearly as big as some people think it is."


What makes this particularly noteworthy is that many of these studies have received far less attention than the claims that helped shape the original narrative. While figures suggesting that 40 percent of imported clothing becomes waste have been repeatedly cited in media reports, advocacy campaigns and policy discussions, studies producing substantially lower estimates have rarely played a comparable role in the debate.


The result is an unusual disconnect. Some of the most influential claims in the discussion are not necessarily those most strongly supported by evidence, while studies that attempt to quantify the problem systematically have received comparatively little attention.


Basel and the next stage

The growing disconnect between evidence and policy is perhaps most visible within the Basel Convention.


Current discussions include proposals that could subject textile exports to a system known as Prior Informed Consent. Under such a framework, shipments could require approvals from exporting countries, importing countries and transit countries before moving.


According to Wheeler, such measures could significantly increase costs and complexity.

"It can take months to arrange and it would add tens of thousands of pounds or euros or dollars onto the cost of each shipment."


The intention is to prevent waste exports.

The question is whether the regulations are being designed to address a problem that has never been adequately demonstrated. If reusable textiles become entangled in systems designed for waste, the consequences could extend far beyond the original policy objective.


What happens when assumptions become regulation?

The debate over textile waste exports is often presented as a dispute about conditions in Ghana, Kenya or other importing countries. Increasingly, however, the real story may be something else. It is a story about how narratives become policy.


Karolina Skog, former Swedish Minister for the Environment and now representing the Nordic Textile Network and Sweden's City Missions, sees a growing contradiction.

"I think there is a discrepancy of what policymakers say that they want and what is done."


Most policymakers say they want more circularity, more reuse and longer product lifetimes. Yet some of the policies now under discussion risk making international reuse more difficult. The irony is hard to ignore.


Over the last four years, a claim became a headline.

The headline became a narrative.

The narrative became a policy concern.

The policy concern became a regulatory agenda.


What remains surprisingly difficult to identify is the evidence that started it all.


Written by

Thomas Lundkvist



Previous articles in this investigation:



Sources and further reading:

2021 OR Foundation Dead White Man's Clothes

 
 
 

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