What the research actually says about secondhand clothing exports

Claims that poorer countries receive large quantities of unusable clothing have become a central argument in the secondhand export debate. But how well has the problem been measured?

Reuse News examined recurring studies and reports — and found that their headline figures seldom answer the most relevant questions.

Over the past year, Reuse News has investigated the evidence behind claims of widespread textile waste exports. We examined reports, traced repeatedly cited figures and visited locations presented as evidence of a waste crisis. Our findings, brought together in How the myth of textile waste is reshaping a global circular system, challenged the certainty surrounding those claims.

We then asked the European Commission to substantiate the scale of the problem and identify the evidence underpinning its assessment. As reported in Shouldn’t policymakers check the facts before making policy?,

That correspondence ended without the Commission providing robust evidence to substantiate its concern that substantial quantities of textile waste are being exported under the guise of reusable clothing.

This article examines and explains the research behind the debate. It asks which studies are available, what they measure, how reliable their findings are and what readers can reasonably conclude from them.

First, define the problem

The existing research measures different things and uses different definitions of waste. Each study may provide useful information, but its findings do not necessarily tell us how much waste is being exported as secondhand clothing.

To assess that claim, we first need to define what we mean by waste and identify the question the evidence should answer. Only then can we judge whether the available research provides a clear answer.

For this review, we define waste as clothing that, following import, is neither sold nor otherwise passed on for continued use, but instead goes directly to landfill, dumpsites or burning.

Our question is therefore:

What proportion of imported bale contents goes directly to dumping, landfill or burning, without first being sold or passed on in the receiving country?

For this examination, that is what Reuse News means by direct waste. It is a practical test of the claim about immediate disposal, rather than a comprehensive legal definition of textile waste.

The same reasoning should apply to new clothes. A shipment does not retrospectively become waste at the border because some garments later might fail to sell.

Defining the question matters. Otherwise, evidence of a country’s broader textile waste problem can be mistaken for evidence that its secondhand imports arrived as waste. Measures intended to prevent dumping could then also affect clothing with a functioning market for continued use.

Reuse News has assessed the publications below against this specific question. This is a focused examination of central references in the debate, rather than an exhaustive global review.

Four reports associated with claims of substantial waste

These publications feature in arguments about substantial waste in secondhand imports or the markets receiving them. They use different methods and definitions, and sometimes investigate different problems.

None provides a secure, representative answer to our specific question. That does not make every finding invalid. It limits what those findings can establish about waste at arrival.

The Or Foundation: Waste Landscape Report — Ghana, 2022

This report draws on extensive local observation and research at Kantamanto, Accra, Ghana. It estimates that 40% of clothing circulating through retail leaves as waste, while earlier research put the immediately unsellable share of a bale at around 4%.

Our assessment: might give useful knowledge of the market, but no sufficiently clear calculation establishing that 40% of imports arrives as waste. The two percentages describe different stages and cannot be used interchangeably.

Changing Markets Foundation: Trashion — Kenya, 2023

This report uses trader interviews and field observations to argue that 20–50% of bale contents is unsellable.

Our assessment: the accounts reveal individual experiences, but their wider significance is uncertain. We have not been able to verify a clear interview total, random selection or safeguards against leading answers. Without those details, readers cannot judge whether the interviewees represent the wider market or whether their estimates establish a national waste rate.

Greenpeace: Fast Fashion, Slow Poison — Ghana, 2024

This report examines discarded clothing and the environmental conditions around its disposal.

Our assessment: testing garments from dumpsites can reveal what those garments contain. It cannot show what proportion of all imported clothing is thrown away. The report also draws on other organisations’ waste estimates. It contributes evidence about disposal and pollution, rather than an independent measurement of waste arriving in imported bales.

Mensah and colleagues: Textile waste from fashion shops and imported second-hand clothing in the Greater Kumasi Sub-Region of Ghana — 2026

This peer-reviewed study examines 279 secondhand bales and classifies 23.8% of their weight as waste.

Our assessment: the bale sample provides a concrete research base. The difficulty is what “waste” means: traders reportedly resold most of the material classified that way. The study therefore does not establish that 23.8% was immediately discarded. Answering our question requires identifying what happened after resale.

What do these reports establish?

They provide accounts of different problems that may be legitimate subjects for further investigation.

But their percentages cannot be lined up as independent measurements confirming that substantial shares of imported clothing go straight to disposal.

Some concern different stages of trade. Some rely on traders’ estimates without establishing how representative those accounts are. Some repeat earlier figures. One classifies material as waste while reporting that most of it is sold onwards.

Together, they do not securely establish the large direct-waste shares often attributed to secondhand imports.

That leaves a second question: what does the research show when investigators try to measure actual waste leaving a market or distinguish discarded material from clothing that continues to find buyers?

Research pointing towards lower waste quantities

The following four publications provide relevant evidence, although they do not all measure the same outcome. Two also share underlying research.

GIZ: Assessment study — Used textiles at Kantamanto market — Ghana, 2024

Researchers investigated actual waste quantities through two field visits spanning several weeks and a ten-day collection trial paying people to deliver unwanted textiles. Once fully operational, collection averaged around four tonnes daily. The authors concluded that waste generation was far below the earlier claimed 100 tonnes a day.

Our assessment: a meaningful field test challenging the higher estimates. It did not capture every disposal route or establish the waste percentage of imported bales. But its own fieldwork provides direct evidence against the claimed daily volume and should not be presented simply as support for the high-waste narrative.

Full Cycle Resource: Trade in Secondhand Clothing — Uganda and Tanzania, 2026

Prepared within the UK-funded SMEP programme, implemented in partnership with UN Trade and Development — UNCTAD — this is the most extensive investigation in our selection. It reports more than 2,000 respondents and a clothing dataset exceeding 244,000 items, with 1.1–1.3% classified as textile waste.

Our assessment: its structured interviews, trained interviewers, local academic partners and checks on recorded responses make it one of the strongest methodological foundations here. It also separates wearable clothing, rags and disposal. However, its selected markets and reliance on trader information prevent a definitive national estimate; the reported garment dataset is not the same as an independently audited count of every item.

WasteAid/Full Cycle Resource: A study of textile waste at Owino Market, Kampala — Uganda, 2024/2025

The researchers conducted around 1,000 surveys covering market participants and report 0.9–1% going directly to landfill.

Our assessment: the study asks a directly relevant question and distinguishes cheap, saleable clothing from material actually discarded. Its breadth gives the findings weight, but trader answers are not the same as independently tracking disposal. It covers one market and partly overlaps with the later Uganda–Tanzania study, so the two are not independent confirmations.

Information Research Solutions, edited by Patrick Diamond: The Quality of Second-Hand Clothes Imported to Kenya and the Associated Environmental Impacts — 2023

Commissioned by the Mitumba Consortium Association of Kenya, the study includes 120 qualitative interviews with traders and other stakeholders and reports 1–2% waste.

Our assessment: it addresses actual disposal, making it relevant to our question. But interviewees’ estimates were not established through a representative physical audit. The findings document reported low waste levels; they cannot securely fix the percentage for Kenya’s imports as a whole.

What can readers conclude?

The evidence examined here does not substantiate a general claim that large shares of imported secondhand clothing go directly to disposal. Several market studies instead report small immediate waste fractions, while GIZ’s field investigation challenges a prominent estimate of daily waste generation at Kantamanto.

However,markets differ, the studies cover limited periods and places, and much of the information comes from people working in the trade. Research independently following representative shipments would give an even firmer answer.

But those limitations do not make all claims equally well supported. A report about clothing on dumpsites, an estimate of waste leaving retail and an investigation of imported bale contents carry different weight when the question is waste at arrival.

The GIZ findings also illustrate why each report must be read beyond its inherited assumptions. A publication can repeat an earlier estimate in its background material while producing field results that challenge the scale previously claimed.

Even a small waste fraction can create substantial local costs. Clothing successfully reused will also eventually wear out. Both issues deserve scrutiny, just as they do for new clothing.

Neither establishes that the goods were waste when they crossed the border.

The central question remains whether imported clothing has a market for continued use or goes straight to disposal. The research should establish that distinction before its figures are used to portray secondhand trade as waste export.