France boasts robust network of second-hand clothing shops • FRANCE 24 E...

One man’s trash: EU pitch to tackle textile pollution riles second-hand sellers

 

Tougher export rules risk hurting countries with major second-hand markets.

Kenya — whose second-hand trade generates millions in revenue — has been rallying support from industry groups in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique. |

 

MAY 3, 2024 9:00 AM CET

BY MARIANNE GROS

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-countries-pitch-to-tackle-textile-pollution-some-countries-warn-harm-second-handle-sellers/

 

EU countries want to stop their discarded clothes from clogging landfills outside the bloc — but a number of countries, including Kenya, warn that doing so will harm the local trade in second-hand fabrics.

 

France, Sweden and Denmark are asking the EU to back their call to change global rules on textile exports under the Basel Convention and thereby tackle the bloc's growing textile pollution problem. The amount of used fabrics exported from the bloc has tripled over the past two decades, reaching almost 1.7 million tons in 2019.

 

Under the proposal, companies in the EU looking to export textile waste — clothes deemed too degraded or stained to be resold — would have to give more information about the content of shipments, while importing countries would have to prove the waste is being disposed of correctly.

 

But traders in used textiles in developing countries, including Kenya, are warning that the stricter rules are too broad and will also limit exports of high-quality textiles — hurting local businesses that resell the clothes on second-hand markets outside the EU.

 

“We are talking about 2 million people employed in this trade, and 6.5 million households depending on this trade in Kenya alone,” said Teresia Wairimu Njenga, chair of the Mitumba Association — Kenya’s main second-hand trade industry group, which has been lobbying Brussels to dismiss the proposal.

 

Njenga said Kenya — whose second-hand trade generates millions in revenue — has been rallying support from industry groups in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique.

 

Other countries, including Pakistan and Chile, which are among the largest importers of Europe’s used clothes and act as regional hubs for the second-hand textile trade, will also likely be affected by any change in export rules.

 

Mountains of trash

The aim of the proposal is to improve how EU countries manage their waste by boosting collection, sorting and recycling — and by encouraging producers to make clothes that last longer.

 

Currently, about 46 percent of EU exports of used textiles end up in African countries; the lower the quality of fashion products, the more likely they are to end up in landfills.

 

In Kenya, for example, the Changing Markets Foundation estimates that about 300 million unusable items of clothing end up in landfills each year, representing anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of the country's total textile imports. 

 

As part of the proposal, France, Sweden and Denmark say textile waste should be subject to the same rules as plastic or electronic waste — meaning countries that import it must explicitly consent to do so and must prove they can dispose of the waste in an environmentally friendly way.

 

 

In Kenya the Changing Markets Foundation estimates that about 300 million unusable items of clothing end up in landfills each year, |

 

They also suggest that exports of “hazardous” textile waste — fabrics stained with chemicals or paint, for example — should be banned altogether. Several other EU countries support the proposal, including Finland and Austria.

 

“What is exported as being second-hand textiles must be just that, and not sheer worthless, unusable, textile waste,” Sweden’s Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari told POLITICO.

 

Sweden also wants to create a traceability system for textile waste to stop “the abuse of the second-hand textile market by those who are trying to avoid paying the full price of fast fashion,” she said.

 

A spokesperson from France’s environment ministry said “the aim is not to put an end to the second-hand clothing trade but to create a truly circular economy and help developing countries.”

 

The problem, as Kenya and others see it, is that there is currently no distinction between textiles that cannot be reused and clothes than can be resold on the second-hand market — at least when it comes to shipments.

 

Under the international system by which goods are categorized for import and export, there is one category for worn clothes and another for used rags and textile scraps, but there is no separate code for textile waste that is too damaged to be resold.

 

As a result, all textiles — used, scrap and damaged clothes — get bundled together when shipped. Export restrictions would prevent unusable fabrics from ending up in landfills, but would also limit exports of second-hand garments. That would damage the local second-hand economy in Kenya, which has already enacted measures to guarantee it only imports high-quality textiles, said Njenga from the Mitumba Association.

 

“The reason we are being so vocal is because these people are trying to bring in new protocols when we have already been doing this for 40 years and have already developed our own,” she said.

 

Ola Bakowska, circular textiles strategist at the Circle Economy Foundation, noted that the real problem is the sheer amount of textiles being produced. “The conversation on import bans should not deter from the main problem — which is addressing production volumes,” she said.

 

The textile sorting and recycling industry has also cited flaws in the proposal, saying it would add "administrative and financial burdens" to an already struggling sector, as they would be responsible for notifying and getting consent from importing countries.

 

For the plan to become reality, the European Commission would have to put forward a legislative proposal and the Council of the EU would need to adopt it, allowing the EU to formally request the Basel Convention be amended. The parties to the convention would then have to agree.

 

The Commission "welcomes the intention behind the initiative of France, Denmark and Sweden" and sees "merits in initiating such a discussion," a spokesperson for the EU executive said, adding that the Basel Convention is "the right context to discuss the issue of global trade in used textiles."

 

This article was updated to add a statement from the European Commission.