Something is changing in the European debate about circular textiles. For years, much of the focus has been on collecting more used clothes, controlling textile waste and increasing recycling. But several recent developments point towards a broader view. Three shifts stand out. 1. Second-hand is booming – but the industry is struggling Consumers are increasingly buying second-hand clothes. Resale platforms have grown rapidly, charity shops remain important and second-hand fashion has moved into the mainstream. But behind the consumer boom, the industry that collects, sorts and prepares used clothes for reuse is struggling. Several things are happening at the same time. Large volumes of very cheap new clothes continue to enter the European market. They compete directly with second-hand goods and, sooner or later, many of them also enter collection systems. At the same time, more textiles are being collected. But collecting more does not necessarily mean collecting more clothes with a second-hand value. Poorer-quality garments cost money to collect and sort even when there is little or no revenue at the end of the process. This matters because the economics of textile sorting have traditionally depended heavily on the better garments. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has noted that the highest-quality share of collected textiles generates much of the value that makes sorting economically viable. Europe is also introducing new rules for collection and producer responsibility. These systems could eventually bring substantial new funding into the sector. But their design will determine whether that money supports reuse or mainly pays for waste handling and recycling. The result is an important paradox. Second-hand can be growing as a consumer market while the infrastructure that supplies that market becomes harder to finance. That is one reason why the current discussion about circularity is becoming broader than simply collecting more textiles. 2. Textile recycling is still tiny – and attention is shifting towards keeping clothes in use Textile-to-textile recycling is often presented as an important part of the future circular textile economy. But today, it barely exists at scale. The European Environment Agency has cited estimates that less than one percent of textile waste is recycled into new fibres for clothing. Much of what is currently described as textile recycling instead turns textiles into lower-value products such as insulation or wiping cloths. This is an important starting point. Europe is building collection systems that will produce much larger textile flows, while the technology and markets needed to turn those textiles back into new clothing remain very limited. At the same time, more policymakers and researchers are asking whether recycling has received too much attention in the first place. A new programme funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and UK Research and Innovation warns that an excessive focus on recycling can help maintain a system based on overproduction and high consumption. It instead puts more emphasis on longer product life, repair, reuse and functioning second-hand markets. France is testing a similar approach. A programme run by the French ecological transition agency ADEME is looking at whether progress should be measured through fewer new clothes entering the market, longer use and more repair rather than simply through larger collection volumes. This shift is especially relevant in light of another problem. A considerable part of the European policy debate has focused on concerns that large quantities of textile waste are being exported as second-hand clothing. But the scale of that problem has still not been robustly established. The European Environment Agency itself acknowledges that official trade data cannot reliably distinguish reusable second-hand textiles from textile waste. It describes the lack of a clear distinction, together with differences in how countries classify these flows, as major weaknesses in the available data. The European Commission is also supporting further international research to establish, among other things, how much waste may actually be moving within the used-textile trade. Against that background, the growing interest in reuse and longer product life marks an important change of perspective. A jacket that is worn for another five years remains a jacket. Once it is shredded into fibre, most of its value as a product has already been lost. Recycling will be needed for textiles that can no longer be used. But with textile-to-textile recycling still below one percent, keeping usable products in use is not a marginal part of circularity. It is currently the much larger circular option. 3. Policymakers are starting to look at what enters the system – not only what comes out The third shift is happening further upstream. Much of textile policy has focused on what happens after people stop using their clothes: collection, sorting, export, recycling and waste treatment. Now policymakers are also beginning to look at the flow of new clothes entering the market. France has introduced a new environmental charge aimed specifically at ultra-fast fashion. The European Union is tightening rules for low-value e-commerce imports and making online platforms more responsible for the products they bring into Europe. Early data from the Netherlands already shows how quickly the market can react. Small parcel volumes fell sharply after new charges were introduced, although some trade appears to have shifted towards bulk imports and warehouses inside Europe. It is therefore too early to know whether these measures will actually reduce the number of cheap new clothes being sold. But the change in focus is significant. Instead of concentrating almost entirely on how to manage textile waste after it appears, policymakers are beginning to address one of the forces creating the growing flow in the first place: extremely large volumes of cheap new clothing. That matters directly for reuse. Cheap new garments compete with second-hand goods on price. And when large volumes of low-value clothing eventually enter collection systems, they can make sorting and resale more difficult and expensive. Reducing that flow could therefore affect the whole chain – from consumption and second-hand sales to collection, sorting, recycling and waste. It also changes the nature of the policy discussion. Instead of trying to solve a circularity problem mainly at the waste stage – including through increasingly detailed rules for classifying and controlling used textiles – governments are beginning to intervene before the waste is created. A broader idea of circularity These three developments are different, but they point in the same direction. The second-hand boom is revealing that growing consumer demand does not automatically create a financially healthy reuse system. The limitations of textile recycling are bringing renewed attention to the much simpler option of keeping products in use. And policymakers are beginning to address the flow of new products entering the market instead of focusing almost entirely on what happens at the end. This broader perspective also matters because increasingly detailed policy is being developed around textile waste at a time when some important parts of the underlying problem are still not well quantified – including how much of Europe’s used-clothing exports is actually waste. Circularity may therefore be moving towards a more basic idea. Not simply collecting more. Not simply recycling more. But producing less waste, keeping useful products in use and preserving their value for as long as possible.

New data from the European Environment Agency gives repair a striking result: 95 percent of the textiles brought to participating European Repair Cafés in 2025 could be repaired. The figure suggests that many garments discarded or brought in for help are not at the end of their useful life. They may need a new zip, a repaired seam, a button or another relatively limited intervention before they can be used again. Yet repair often remains a minor part of textile policy. Extended producer responsibility systems are largely discussed in terms of collection, sorting and recycling capacity. Repair is frequently recognised as desirable, but it receives less attention in funding structures, targets and public reporting. That creates a mismatch between policy and practical results. Material recycling can require complex infrastructure and may still produce residues, while a successful repair preserves the product and much of the value already invested in it. The EEA data does not show that every discarded garment can be saved, nor does it measure the full cost of each repair. But a 95 percent success rate raises a clear question for governments and producer responsibility organisations. If repair performs this well in practice, why is it still treated as a side activity rather than a central part of Europe’s textile strategy?

A new EU ban on destroying unsold clothing, accessories and footwear took effect on 19 July. It initially applies to large companies, while medium-sized businesses will follow in 2030. Small and micro-enterprises are exempt. The principle is straightforward: new and usable products should remain in use rather than be incinerated, landfilled or otherwise destroyed. Companies are expected to prioritise measures such as discounted sales, alternative markets, donations, repair and preparation for reuse. Destruction is still permitted in limited cases, including unsafe, damaged or counterfeit goods, but companies must document the grounds and keep records for inspection. New unsold clothes can no longer be destroyed. The ban may nevertheless create new pressure elsewhere in the system. Preventing destruction does not guarantee that an item will find a buyer or user. Large volumes of unwanted stock could instead be channelled into donation, resale or sorting systems that already struggle with fluctuating quality and demand. Products may technically be “prepared for reuse” without achieving actual reuse, while charities and second-hand operators could face higher handling and disposal costs. There is also a risk that excess stock is shifted to alternative markets primarily to remove it from corporate inventories. The critical measure will therefore not be how much destruction falls, but what happens next. The first annual disclosures should show whether the ban reduces overproduction, or merely changes the destination and classification of unsold clothes.

The push to regulate textile waste exports began with the assumption that the problem was already understood. The Basel process has instead exposed fundamental uncertainty about what is actually being traded, what should count as waste and whether the problem exists in the form originally described. When Reuse News examined the issue ahead of the Basel Convention meeting, the political direction appeared clear. Used clothing exports were increasingly being presented as a waste problem requiring international control. The remaining question seemed to be how the rules should be designed. The meeting produced a very different picture. Instead of moving directly towards new restrictions, the Basel process exposed how much remains uncertain. Governments and organisations described different problems, different markets and different meanings of the word waste. The evidence did not support one simple account of a global trade in unwanted clothing. The process has now been forced back to a more basic stage. The Basel Convention is gathering experiences and data on trade in used textiles and textile waste. It is also examining the available regulatory options and the distinction between the two. The issue is expected to return when governments meet again at the next Conference of the Parties in 2027. Used textiles or textile waste? This may sound like a technical discussion, but the distinction has consequences far beyond customs procedures. A used garment can be a donation, a commercial product, recycling material or waste, depending on its condition, its buyer and the market in which it arrives. The same item may have little value in one country and a clear use in another. Any international definition must somehow capture those differences while remaining simple enough for authorities to apply at borders. That is not merely a bureaucratic challenge. It goes to the centre of how a circular economy is supposed to work. When a waste definition becomes too broad Markets for reuse depend on the possibility that goods can retain value after their first owner no longer wants them. If governments define waste too broadly, usable products may be caught in systems designed for disposal. Trade becomes more expensive, smaller markets become harder to serve and clothes that could have been reused may instead be destroyed closer to where they were collected. What the evidence has not established What the Basel process has not established is that the international second-hand trade as a whole resembles the waste trade described by some of its critics. That matters for the public debate. Images of polluted beaches and overflowing dumps have helped create the impression of a direct and well-documented chain from clothing collection in wealthy countries to environmental destruction elsewhere. But when Reuse News examined locations presented as evidence of textile waste in Ghana, much of what appeared to be discarded clothing was actually plastic. Previous Reuse News investigations have also found that the wider chain is often assumed rather than demonstrated. The commercial structure of the second-hand trade provides no obvious economic logic for systematically exporting unusable clothing as a product. The presence of discarded clothing does not by itself prove that waste was exported. Nor does it prove that the clothing had no market value when it crossed the border, or that the problem exists on the scale commonly claimed. Evidence before new controls The next phase should therefore be judged by the quality of the evidence it produces, not by how quickly it delivers new controls. Governments need to understand what is traded, why it is traded, where genuine abuse occurs and what happens when legitimate reuse markets are restricted. Basel began with pressure to regulate textile waste. It has arrived at the harder task of establishing what textile waste is and whether the original diagnosis was correct. That is a reason to ensure that future rules address a problem that can be shown to exist, rather than one that has mainly been repeated. Source: Basel Convention Secretariat: Used textiles and textile waste overview.

The Geneva meeting did not move proposals for stronger controls on used textiles forward for adoption at COP18. The second-hand industry has reason to be cautiously optimistic after last week’s Basel Convention meeting in Geneva. But not because the issue has gone away. At OEWG-15, delegates discussed whether and how the Basel Convention should address the international trade in used textiles and textile waste. Some Parties and observers pushed for stronger controls, including possible prior informed consent procedures and changes to Basel annexes. Others warned that such steps could disrupt legitimate reuse markets before the problem has been clearly defined. In the end, proposals to move used textiles closer to stronger Basel controls were not taken forward for adoption at COP18. Instead, Parties and observers have been invited to submit another round of comments by 30 November 2026. For parts of the second-hand sector, that outcome is best understood as a pause, not a victory. It means there is still time to bring forward evidence, data and practical experience before global waste rules are reshaped around the trade in used clothing. Kenya argued that it would be premature to move directly towards stronger controls and called instead for further technical work. Representatives from the second-hand sector, including the Mitumba Consortium Association of Kenya, the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association and SMART, stressed the economic importance of the trade, the need for better data and the risk of treating reusable goods as waste. That does not settle the issue. But it shifts the debate from a simple question of whether textile waste exists to a more difficult one: who should define it, on what evidence, and with what consequences? Related to Reuse News investigations, the Geneva outcome underlines a central point in the wider textile waste debate: the second-hand industry is not arguing that waste should be left unregulated. The question is whether global regulation should be built around claims of large-scale waste exports before those claims have been tested against robust, transparent and verifiable evidence. The next phase is therefore crucial. If the Basel process now focuses on technical guidance, classification, traceability and inspection tools, regulators will need to answer practical questions: What makes a garment reusable? Who decides when it becomes waste? And how can a global system avoid confusing low-value but usable clothing with waste? The Geneva meeting did not remove the risk of future controls. But it did prevent the issue from moving forward on assumptions alone. For an industry built on reuse, that is a meaningful — if temporary — reason for cautious optimism.

The debate over textile waste often focuses on environmental risks. Less attention is sometimes given to what existing reuse systems already deliver. Every year, large volumes of used clothing are collected, sorted and redistributed through international second-hand markets. These systems provide affordable clothing to consumers, create economic activity and extend the life of products that might otherwise be discarded. Research has consistently shown that extending product lifetimes can reduce environmental impacts compared with replacing garments immediately with newly produced alternatives. The sector also supports substantial employment. Estimates suggest that more than two million people in both Ghana and Kenya depend directly or indirectly on second-hand clothing markets through sorting, repair, transport, wholesale and retail activities. For many consumers, second-hand markets are not a lifestyle choice but an economic necessity. Supporters of stricter regulation argue that stronger controls are needed to prevent environmental harm and improve accountability. Those concerns are legitimate and increasingly influential in policy discussions. The question is whether policymakers can distinguish between waste that should be controlled and products that remain valuable and usable. If they succeed, regulation could strengthen confidence in reuse systems. If they fail, policies intended to promote sustainability could unintentionally reduce reuse, increase demand for newly manufactured clothing and weaken an important source of livelihoods and affordable goods. That is why the current debate matters far beyond the textile sector itself. It is ultimately a test of how circular economy policies balance environmental protection with economic and social realities. The Geneva meeting last week of June did not settle the question of how used textiles should be treated under the Basel Convention. Instead, the process now moves into a new phase. Parties and observers have been invited to submit another round of comments by 30 November 2026, before the issue is taken forward towards COP18 in April 2027. That makes the coming months important. The focus is now likely to shift towards technical guidance, definitions, classification, traceability, inspection tools and the unresolved question of how officials should distinguish reusable textiles from textile waste. For the second-hand sector, this distinction is crucial. Future rules could include instruments such as prior informed consent, new Annex entries, certification requirements or closer alignment between Basel rules and customs codes. But without clear evidence and workable definitions, such measures risk treating functioning reuse markets as waste flows by regulation. The next phase should therefore not only ask how textile waste can be controlled. It must first answer a more basic question: what exactly is the problem, how large is it, and how can regulators act without damaging legitimate reuse?

When the Basel Convention invited comments on used textiles and textile waste, responses arrived from governments, industry associations, NGOs, charities, academics and international organisations. On paper, the process is open to all 191 parties to the convention. In practice, only a small share submitted formal comments. Twelve parties and twenty-two observers participated in the consultation. The limited participation raises important questions. Countries with extensive policy resources often have greater capacity to engage in technical consultations, while many developing countries face competing priorities and resource constraints. The responses reveal a significant divide in how stakeholders understand the problem. Many environmental NGOs and activist organisations argue that current systems allow waste to be exported under the label of reuse. They generally support tighter definitions, stronger controls and greater traceability. Industry groups, reuse organisations and many actors involved in second-hand trade tend to focus on the benefits of reuse. They argue that exported clothing is intended for continued use and warn that excessive restrictions could undermine circular systems that already exist. The disagreement is therefore not simply about regulation. It is about the underlying diagnosis of the problem. Is the primary issue waste disguised as reuse, or is there a risk that functioning reuse systems are increasingly being treated as waste? Update: Since OEWG-15, the Basel process has formally invited Parties and observers to submit another round of comments by 30 November 2026. That makes the earlier lack of participation even more important: the next few months may determine whether future rules are shaped by broad evidence or by a small group of highly active voices.

International waste regulators are moving closer to the question of used textiles. After a week of negotiations in Geneva, the issue is now firmly on the agenda for future global rules on waste exports. But one central question remains unresolved: what evidence shows that large-scale exports of unusable second-hand clothes are actually driving the textile waste problem? If new rules are built on unclear or incomplete data, they could end up restricting a functioning reuse system without solving the real waste problem. The Basel Convention regulates the international movement of hazardous and other wastes. At the latest round of negotiations in Geneva last week, used textiles and textile waste moved further into that global regulatory process. For most people outside environmental policy circles, it is an invisible process. But its decisions can have far-reaching consequences for global trade, including the trade in used goods, recyclable materials and waste. The meeting did not decide new global controls for used clothes. But it did move the issue further into the Basel process. The question will now continue toward the next Conference of the Parties, COP18, in Panama in April 2027. A clear divide over reuse and waste exports The Geneva discussions exposed a clear divide. On one side, several governments and environmental groups argue that today’s system leaves too much room for waste to be exported under the label of reuse. They want clearer international rules to distinguish reusable textiles from textile waste, and stronger controls to prevent importing countries from being left with material they cannot sell, recycle or manage safely. On the other side, actors in the reuse and recycling sector warn that poorly designed rules could damage a circular trade system that already keeps garments in use, supports livelihoods and reduces demand for new production. They also strongly challenge the evidence behind the claim that second-hand exports are a major waste stream, pointing instead to studies, field observations and market data that suggest a very different picture: most exported second-hand clothing is commercially valuable, sorted for reuse and imported because there is demand for it. Their argument is not that textile waste should move freely, but that reusable second-hand clothes must not be swept into waste controls simply because they cross a border. Reuse News found a weakly evidenced claim Reuse News’ own investigations ahead of the Geneva meeting found that one of the central claims behind the policy pressure remains weakly evidenced: that large-scale exports of unusable second-hand clothes are being shipped to African countries under the cover of reuse. Read more: How the myth of textile waste is reshaping a global circular system In Ghana, one of the most frequently cited examples, the visible waste crisis documented by Reuse News was dominated by plastic and mixed municipal waste, not mountains of imported textile waste. Interviews and field observations also pointed to strong commercial incentives to import sellable clothes, not unusable waste. Read more: What looks like mountains of textile waste, is actually not. It's plastic. What happens next? The issue now is whether global waste rules should be reshaped around a claim that has still not been proven with robust, transparent and verifiable evidence. The Geneva meeting did not settle that question. But it made the next phase more important. After OEWG-15, proposals to move used textiles closer to stronger Basel controls were not taken forward for adoption at COP18. Instead, Parties and observers have been invited to submit another round of comments by 30 November 2026. The next phase is expected to focus heavily on technical guidance, data and the unresolved question of how officials should distinguish reusable textiles from textile waste. What happens next is therefore not just a technical follow-up. Ahead of the November deadline — and ultimately COP18 in April 2027 — the key question will be whether the Basel process treats the evidence gap as a problem to be solved, or moves ahead on the assumption that the problem has already been proven. Better definitions may be needed. But definitions built on weak evidence could turn a circular trade flow into a waste problem by regulation. If used textiles are now moving closer to global waste controls, the evidence must move just as quickly. Before second-hand clothes are treated as a waste problem, regulators need to prove what the problem actually is. Read more: Second-hand industry appears cautiously optimistic after Geneva waste talks After Basel: Waste or reuse? Written by Thomas Lundkvist Sources: Basel Convention Secretariat: “Used textiles and textile wastes: Note by the Secretariat” IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin: “Summary report 23–26 June 2026” Environmental Investigation Agency: “Stitching up the textile loophole in the Basel Convention”

Strong rules need strong evidence. After Basel’s OEWG 15 meeting in Geneva, the debate over used textiles is moving further into formal policy work. That makes the evidence behind the claims more important than before. The central question is whether there is reliable evidence that large-scale exports of unusable clothing are driving a waste crisis in receiving countries, and whether that evidence is strong enough to justify new international controls on second-hand trade. This is where the policy process faces a difficult test. Much of the current debate is built around concern over waste, dumping and weak sorting. But concern is not the same as evidence. If reusable clothing is increasingly treated as a waste-risk category, regulators will need to show why the existing trade-based system is not sufficient, where it fails, and at what scale. Reuse News’ own reporting has repeatedly found a gap between some of the strongest claims made in the debate and the evidence available to support them. In several receiving markets, used clothing is not simply dumped after import. It is bought, taxed, sorted, traded, repaired, resold and used through complex commercial systems. Poor quality goods, illegal shipments and genuinely unusable material should be addressed, if it exists. But if new rules are built on unclear definitions or weak data, there is a risk that regulation aimed at waste could also restrict legitimate reuse. The next phase of the Basel process should therefore raise the evidentiary bar — not only for the second-hand sector, but also for policymakers, NGOs and researchers. If global rules are to be developed, the evidence should be strong enough to answer a basic question: what problem is being regulated — and how large is it?

Who draws the line — and how? After the Basel Convention’s OEWG 15 meeting in Geneva, the formal process on used textiles and textile waste is moving forward. The work ahead will focus on definitions, guidance and possible future steps — with one question now at the centre: how should reusable clothing be distinguished from textile waste? For many actors in the second-hand sector, this question should not be part of the Basel Convention at all. They argue that reusable clothing is a traded product, not waste, and that importing countries already regulate what can enter their markets. But whether the issue belongs in Basel or not, the process is now under way — and the distinction between reuse and waste is becoming decisive. The difficult question is who should make that distinction, and how. Is a garment waste because it is low quality? Because it is damaged? Because it is unlikely to be resold in Europe? Or only when it cannot realistically be reused, repaired, recycled or sold in the receiving market? That judgement is complicated because value is not fixed. A piece of clothing that has no commercial value in one market may still have value in another. What looks unsellable to an exporter, inspector or policymaker may still be traded, repaired, downcycled or used in a local market with different price levels, needs and sorting systems. Today, much of that judgement is made by the trade itself: buyers, importers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers decide what is worth paying for. Replacing that market judgement with a regulatory test would require clear criteria, reliable inspection systems and evidence that the current system is failing at scale. The next challenge is therefore not only to define waste. It is to decide who should make that judgement, at which point in the trade chain, on what evidence — and with what consequences for a global reuse system that still appears to work at scale.

We travelled to Ghana looking for the mountains of textile waste that have become famous around the world. We did find waste. A lot of waste. But what looked like mountains of discarded clothing turned out to be something else. Plastic. That discovery became the starting point for a deeper investigation. Because if the images at the centre of the textile waste debate are not showing what people think they are showing, what else might be wrong? Over the past year, Reuse News has followed that question from the beaches of Accra to the heart of global policymaking. What we found raises fundamental questions about one of the most influential narratives in the circular economy. Over the past year, Reuse News has investigated the claims behind the textile waste narrative. We travelled to Ghana. We interviewed traders, importers, researchers, policymakers and industry representatives. We reviewed studies, reports and policy proposals that are now helping shape the future of the global textile trade. What we found raises fundamental questions about one of the most influential stories in the circular economy. First discovery: The mountains of textile waste were nowhere to find Images from Accra, Ghana have become some of the most widely used evidence supporting claims that second hand clothing exports are creating an environmental crisis. From a distance, the images appear devastating. Vast accumulations of waste seem to consist of discarded garments. But when we visited the locations repeatedly used to illustrate the problem, a different picture emerged. There was waste. A lot of waste. But not textile waste. What appeared to be textile waste from afar turned out to be plastic bags, packaging and other non-textile debris when examined up close. The textile mountains that have become central to the global narrative were nowhere to find. What we found on the ground was also reflected in the reactions of the people who work in Ghana's second hand trade. Importers, traders and market organisations repeatedly told Reuse News that they do not recognise the picture that has been presented in international media. Many expressed frustration at seeing Ghana portrayed as a dumping ground for foreign textile waste. "If 40% of what you import would be trash and unsellable, you wouldn't be able to stay in business for very long. It just doesn't make sense," says Marlwin Owusu of the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association. Others pointed to a growing disconnect between what is being reported abroad and what they experience every day in the market. For many traders, the issue is no longer only about waste. It is about how an entire industry, and the livelihoods that depend on it, are being portrayed to the rest of the world. Read the full investigation: What looks like mountains of textile waste, is actually not. It's plastic. Second discovery: The economics don't add up The most widely repeated claim in the debate is that up to 40 percent of imported second hand clothing becomes waste. If true, the implications would be enormous. But there is a simple question that is rarely asked: Who would make money from that? The second hand trade is not a charity system. It is a global commercial network involving collectors, sorters, exporters, shipping companies, wholesalers and traders. If nearly half of all imported clothing immediately became worthless waste, somebody would be absorbing catastrophic losses. Yet traders, importers and market organisations consistently describe a functioning business built around selling products, not importing waste. As one importer told us: "We can't be in business spending good money to import goods only to end up selling 60 percent and throwing away 40 percent." Read the full investigation: The missing logic behind the textile waste claims Third discovery: Nobody can explain the business model Environmental scandals usually follow a familiar pattern. Somebody profits. Somebody saves money. Somebody benefits from shifting costs onto someone else. That logic has become central to the textile waste narrative. But when Reuse News searched for evidence of a large scale business model built around exporting textile waste from Europe to Africa, we found something unexpected. We found assumptions, theories and concerns. But we found remarkably little evidence explaining how such a system actually operates. There are no no verified commercial models or clear evidence showing that exporting textile waste is more economically attractive than disposing of it domestically. The business behind the narrative remains surprisingly difficult to identify. Read the full investigation: Everyone talks about textile waste exports. Nobody can explain the business model. Fourth discovery: The narrative is already changing policy Across Europe and internationally, policymakers are now developing new rules governing textile collection, sorting and exports. And much of it is based on the assumtions about the textile waste export. Discussions within the Basel Convention could fundamentally change how used textiles move across borders. New regulatory frameworks are being designed to stop waste exports. Several experts interviewed by Reuse News warn that policies intended to solve one problem could unintentionally damage one of the world's largest circular systems. The question facing policymakers is no longer simply whether textile waste exists. The question is whether the evidence is strong enough to justify reshaping an entire global reuse system. Read the full investigation: How did an unverified claim become a global truth and reshape global policy? Fifth discovery: A narrative became an ecosystem One question remained throughout our investigation. If the evidence was weaker than commonly assumed, how did the textile waste narrative become so influential? The answer leads back to a small number of organisations that helped shape and promote the story over many years. Among them, none has been more influential than The OR Foundation. The organisation played a central role in popularising the claim that up to 40 percent of imported second hand clothing becomes waste, a figure that would later be repeated by international media, advocacy groups and policymakers around the world despite remaining heavily disputed. As the narrative gained influence, so did the organisation behind it. During the years when textile waste became a global policy issue, The OR Foundation's revenues increased by millions of dollars. In 2022, the organisation also received a $15 million commitment from Shein, one of the world's largest ultra fast fashion companies. That is a striking paradox. Claims that remain central to global textile policy discussions continue to be disputed, while the organisations promoting those claims have become increasingly influential, visible and well funded. Read the full investigation: The NGO behind the textile waste narrative and the millions that followed The question that remains This investigation shows that one of the most influential narratives in the global textile debate may rest on assumptions that have received far less scrutiny than the policies now being built around them. A claim became a headline. The headline became a narrative. The narrative became a policy concern. The policy concern became a regulatory agenda.

For years, policymakers, journalists and campaigners have repeated claims that up to 40 percent of second-hand clothing imported into Ghana becomes waste. The claims originated with the OR Foundation, a Ghana-based NGO that has become one of the most influential voices in the global textile waste debate. Despite being widely cited, the figure has never been independently verified and remains heavily contested. And as these claims gained influence around the world, The OR Foundation grew from a relatively small NGO into an organisation with annual revenues exceeding $8 million and received millions of dollars from funders including ultra-fast-fashion giant Shein. This article is part of Reuse News' ongoing investigation into claims surrounding the alleged textile waste crisis in Ghana. Reuse News has reported that several locations frequently presented internationally as evidence of a textile waste crisis consist predominantly of other forms of waste, particularly plastics. We have also found that robust independent studies verifying the waste volumes commonly attributed to second-hand clothing imports remain largely absent. Previous articles: What looks like mountains of textile waste, is actually not. It's plastic. The missing logic behind the textile waste claims The rise raises an obvious question. How did one organisation become both a leading source of information about a global environmental crisis and one of the largest recipients of funding linked to it? The project that changed the conversation The global spread of the 40 percent claim began with Dead White Man's Clothes, a 2021 multimedia project published by The OR Foundation. The project presented a stark picture of the global second-hand clothing trade. Images showed beaches, waterways and dumping sites apparently covered with discarded clothing. Market traders described increasing difficulties handling unsold garments. Its most influential claim was that up to 40 percent of imported second-hand clothing effectively became waste. That figure spread rapidly. OR Foundations multimedia project published in 2021 Major media outlets repeated it. NGOs cited it. Researchers referenced it. Policy reports adopted it. Within a few years, the number had become one of the defining facts of the global textile waste debate. As international attention grew, The OR Foundation increasingly became one of the primary sources through which journalists encountered the story. Major international outlets relied on the organisation for interviews, local context, research, access and visual documentation. In many cases, the same images, statistics and framing travelled together. Yet Dead White Man's Clothes was not a peer-reviewed academic study. It was a multimedia research and storytelling project built primarily around interviews, observations and visual documentation. Despite this, the figure became widely treated as established fact. Before Dead White Man's Clothes The ideas behind the project did not emerge from nowhere. Five years before Dead White Man's Clothes was published, OR Foundation co-founder Branson Skinner submitted a master's thesis examining the second-hand clothing trade in Ghana. Many of the ideas that would later become central to the textile waste narrative were already present. The thesis argued that increasing volumes of low-quality clothing were arriving at Kantamanto Market and that significant quantities were becoming waste. Yet the evidence was limited. Rather than systematic waste audits or large-scale measurements, the conclusions were largely based on interviews, observations and estimates from market participants. The thesis became an early foundation for arguments that would later reach governments, international organisations and global media outlets. From narrative to funding As the textile waste narrative gained momentum, funding followed. The same year Dead White Man's Clothes was published, The OR Foundation became a key partner in Design for Decomposition, a €2.5 million initiative funded by Laudes Foundation. The project was built around the idea that Accra had become a major destination for textile waste and that new systems were needed to address the problem. The timing is notable. At the same time the 40 percent figure entered the global debate, major philanthropic funding began flowing into projects focused specifically on textile waste in Ghana. The OR Foundation was positioned at the centre of several high-profile initiatives. This was not simply research. A new ecosystem was emerging. Foundations, innovation programmes, advocacy campaigns and policy initiatives increasingly focused on the idea that second-hand clothing exports were creating a waste crisis in Africa. Then came Shein The most controversial partnership arrived a year later. In 2022, ultra-fast-fashion giant Shein announced a three-year commitment worth $15 million to The OR Foundation through its Extended Producer Responsibility Fund. The partnership was publicly celebrated by both organisations. The OR Foundation argued that fashion brands should contribute financially to addressing environmental impacts linked to clothing consumption. Yet the agreement also highlighted a striking contradiction. Shein had become one of the world's most criticised fast-fashion companies, frequently accused of accelerating overproduction and disposable consumption. At the same time, one of the most influential voices promoting the textile waste narrative was now receiving millions of dollars from the company. The partnership illustrated how rapidly resources were beginning to flow into initiatives built around textile waste in Ghana. The numbers tell their own story Public tax filings show how dramatically The OR Foundation's finances changed after the publication of Dead White Man's Clothes. In 2021, the organisation reported revenues measured in only a few hundred thousand dollars. By 2022, revenues had surged to more than $5 million. In 2023, they approached $8 million. By 2024, annual revenues exceeded $8.3 million, while total assets reached more than $12 million. Source: IRS Form 990 filings compiled by ProPublica. The growth coincided almost exactly with the period in which the textile waste narrative became globally established. Whether measured in media attention, policy influence or funding, few organisations experienced greater growth during the rise of the issue than The OR Foundation itself. Some of the media reports that followed after OR Foundations Dead White Man's Clothes in 2021. A narrative with consequences As Reuse News has previously reported, field observations in Ghana raise questions about how some of the most widely circulated images have been interpreted. Many locations presented internationally as evidence of a textile waste crisis were found to consist primarily of mixed waste streams dominated by plastics, packaging, construction debris and household waste. Textiles were present, but often represented only a very small visible share of the waste mass observed. The question is whether the images and statistics that travelled around the world accurately reflected their scale. Other questions remain unresolved. Even where discarded garments are present, determining whether they originated from imported second-hand clothing, local consumption, manufacturing waste or other sources is often difficult. The evidence required to move from observation to attribution is rarely straightforward. Critics also question the economic logic behind claims that large volumes of unsellable garments are routinely shipped halfway around the world only to become waste upon arrival. "If we don't have the right information, then the wrong information is going to create the wrong perception, and the wrong perception is going to lead to wrong policies being formulated." That concern is no longer limited to academic debates. Today, the 40 percent figure continues to shape discussions around Extended Producer Responsibility, textile export restrictions, Basel Convention classifications and future regulation of the global second-hand clothing trade, but the evidence behind the claim remains contested. The stakes extend far beyond a single statistic. The policies currently being discussed could influence the future of a trade that supports millions of livelihoods across Africa and provides affordable clothing to large parts of the population. Critics warn that restrictions based on inaccurate assumptions could reduce access to reuse markets, increase textile destruction in exporting countries and undermine one of the world's largest existing circular systems. Written by Thomas Lundkvist Previous articles in this investigation: What looks like mountains of textile waste, is actually not. It's plastic. The missing logic behind the textile waste claims How did an unverified claim become a global truth and reshape global policy Sources: Shein Funding: Pressrelease Laudes Foundation: Design for decomposition The 2021 OR Foundation Report: Dead white man's clothes Original Thesis OR Foundation Tax filing Editor's note: The OR Foundation was given an opportunity to comment on the information and claims presented in this article. No response was received before publication. The organisation's perspective is therefore not reflected in this article.