In order to uncover greenwashing, there are regular studies by various media on the journey our old clothing takes. Randomly selected items of clothing are geotagged and their journey – often thousands of kilometers long – is tracked.
Almost six months ago, the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet and the German Bild newspaper investigated independently of each other and came to the same conclusion: instead of tackling the problem locally with recycling partners, used clothes are being sent halfway around the world.
A current Greenpeace investigation also confirms this approach. Between July and August, the Spanish branch of the environmental organization attached tracking devices to 29 items of clothing that were suitable for a second life and placed them in containers in eleven Spanish provinces. The containers were located both on the side of the road and in Zara and Mango stores.
Stopover: UAE
According to Greenpeace, the first big surprise was that clothing items from both collection systems ended up in the United Arab Emirates. Like Pakistan, these have international collection points for garments in free zones, which makes their re-export easier.
From there it went on to Africa – some items of clothing appeared in Egypt, Togo and Morocco. According to the EU Environment Agency, 46 percent of used textiles exported from the EU are destined for African countries, of which about 60 percent are resold, while the rest are thrown away, often directly into the environment, as Greenpeace found in another recent investigation.
Final stop Africa
“The practice [des Weiterverkaufs]”Although it sounds good, it is very damaging to the local economy as ‘cheap’ European second-hand clothing floods the markets of many countries, preventing the development of a local textile industry,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
Another surprise came in the form of a garment that arrived in Chile, although America is not a common destination for used clothing produced in Spain. However, Chile is home to one of the world’s most famous cases of textile pollution – the ever-growing piles of old clothes piling up in the Atacama Desert have been documented multiple times.
Conclusion: A system that doesn’t work
The conclusion of the Greenpeace study is that so far only one of the 29 pieces of clothing tracked has been reused – it was bought in a second-hand shop in Romania.
“After four months of monitoring, many garments are still in transit and it appears that they have not reached their final destination, despite traveling thousands of kilometers to places as diverse as Chile, Pakistan, India or Togo; or they are in warehouses in industrial areas in Spain or simply continue not to give a signal,” the organization summarizes.
Greenpeace believes the research highlights the need to radically change clothing production and consumption patterns and not fall for false solutions or stopgap solutions that delay this change. The environmental organization demands that the effective use of used clothing, which will be mandatory for clothing companies from 2025, must be accompanied by a drastic reduction in production and an increase in the durability and quality of the garments so that they do not become a growing ecological and social problem.
“We found that the handling of garments stored in containers is far from the circular economy we strive for. The current model involves countries in the Global South producing clothing and then transporting the resulting waste over thousands of kilometers. Unless this changes, the second life of clothing will be more of an industry strategy so that we can buy clothes without regret on days like Black Friday than a reality,” said Sara del Río, head of the study.