Many of us have the experience of donating old clothes that we no longer wear to less developed regions. It not only relieves our closet but also make those clothes valuable and useful again. But what if we donate too much, and those donations are sold instead of sent for free? Then our kind action would cause one of the biggest wicked problems within the fashion industry—the decrease in job opportunities in third world countries due to over-donation of second-hand clothing.
The U.S. donates nearly a billion pounds of clothing per year, so much that it has become a serious issue to the local economies of African countries, especially when the cost of shipping second-hand clothes is typically cheaper than the local prices. For example, 81% of clothing purchases in Uganda is second-hand garments, which is a detrimental number for the growth of the local fashion industry; Kenya only has tens of thousands of garment workers nowadays, which is a huge decline from the half a million workers they had decades ago because there is a lack of demand. Second-hand clothing is contributing to the complete downfall of the garment industry in African countries. Local tailors and factories can’t compete with the second-hand clothes from western countries, which results in a decline in the country’s economy because many of their own businesses shut down. Thus, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda are proposing bans on US clothing donations in an attempt to increase production of their own clothes. However, banning the donations will cause those whose work relates to the donation to lose their jobs; disposing of such huge amount of clothes made by hybrid materials would be extremely environmentally unfriendly; those third world countries may face pressure from Europe and the U.S. As a result, those African governments end up raising tariffs.
We choose this topic because many of us donate our clothes without knowing the serious consequence of changing people’s lives in the third world countries in ways of eliminating the cloth making job opportunities and worsening the poverty cycle. Other than creating the glamorous side of the fashion industry, we should also be aware of the serious problems beneath the surface. Not only does donating clothes hurt the economies in third world countries, but it also does not change the fact that those clothes will still eventually get thrown away and end up buried in the trash yard, which still harms the environment. In other words, reusing the clothes in just slowing down the inevitable disaster. The real focus should be making clothes with more eco-friendly materials and place regulations on the factories.
