What are the knock-on effects of the suspension of the global second-hand clothing trade worth US$4 billion due to the epidemic? Recently, Reuters conducted a detailed investigation on this.
Used clothing recycling is an important way for the fashion industry to relieve pressure. Second-hand clothing trading helps prevent the fashion industry’s excess inventory from being directly thrown into landfills, and also helps consumers free up their wardrobes. Get ready for next season’s new styles. But under the impact of the new crown epidemic, this business model has fallen into unprecedented difficulties. Second-hand clothing exporters in Europe and the United States, as well as traders in developing countries who rely on second-hand clothing supplies, are struggling.
From London to Los Angeles, there is a huge backlog of unsold clothes on the streets outside many clothing stores and in second-hand clothing stores, and inventory is piling up in sorting warehouses. Many textile recyclers and exporters have had to reduce prices to move inventory.
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Antonio de, the owner of Green World Recycling, a textile recycling company in the Stourbridge area of central England “Our warehouse is full,” Carvalho said in June. Antonio de Carvalho makes a profit by selling the recycled clothes to overseas merchants.
Typically, traders in poorer countries such as Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America rely on these second-hand garments. However, since the outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of this year, blockade measures have restricted the flow of second-hand clothing, and business in overseas end markets has slowed down.
As overseas buyers are no longer able to afford freight, Antonio de Carvalho said that since May, the price he has given overseas buyers has dropped from 570 pounds to 400 pounds per ton, which has made his company It’s difficult to cover the costs of collecting and storing clothes.
Antonio de Carvalho said buyers are also demanding that payment terms be extended from 15 days to 45-60 days, exacerbating cash flow problems. “We are losing … a lot of money and have huge operational losses.”
The second-hand clothing market is shrinking
Antonio de Carvalho’s experience mirrors that of the entire industry The dilemma faced is that even if the epidemic passes, the hit second-hand clothing trade will take a long time to recover.
Clothing recyclers are reducing the number of times they collect clothes and clear inventory each week and are considering layoffs to save cash, according to Reuters interviews with 16 market participants in the UK, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
At the same time, consumers who are stuck at home due to the epidemic are also cleaning out their wardrobes, and the behavior of donating clothes is increasing. While this would be a good thing under normal circumstances, it currently puts greater pressure on clothing recyclers.
Jackie King, executive director of the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), said: “This is different from any recession in a century. I expect there will be companies going bankrupt. .”
United Nations trade data shows that in the five years to 2019, global second-hand clothing exports exceeded US$4 billion per year on average, and the withdrawal of clothing recyclers is having a profound impact on the industry.
Official data shows that in the UK, second-hand clothing exports from March to July were about half of the same period last year. Export volumes improved in July, the latest month on record, as countries began to reopen and merchants seized the opportunity to move inventory, but exports were still down about 30% year-on-year.
U.S. government data shows that second-hand clothing exports fell 45% from March to July compared with the same period last year. The United States is the world’s largest exporter of used clothing, and up to one-third of donated clothing ends up being sold in markets in developing countries.
Kenya’s Crisis
In 2018, Kenya imported 176,000 tons of second-hand clothing, equivalent to more than 335 million pairs of jeans.
Now, in one of the largest second-hand clothing markets in East Africa – the open-air market Gikomba in Nairobi (Kenya’s capital), business here is sluggish, shop assistants are standing idle, and merchants are trying their best to shout and shop. people try on their clothes.
Image source: Reuters
Traders here have been hit by a double blow: one On the other hand, due to concerns that second-hand textiles may carry the new coronavirus, the government banned the import of these textiles in March. On the other hand, as people themselves stayed at home, apparel demand and foot traffic dropped.
Nicholas Mutisya, a salesman who sells second-hand jeans and hats, said: “Before the outbreak, I could sell at least 50 pairs of pants every day. But now, it is difficult to sell one pair every day.”
The Kenyan government lifted a ban on the import of second-hand textiles in August as traders in Kenya and industry bodies in Europe and the United States said second-hand clothes were safe and the virus could not survive the journey to Africa.
But for salespeople like Nicholas Mutisya, the difficulties continue. His colleague Anthony Kang ‘ethe said: “There used to be five workers in our company. Now there are only two of us left.”
They sell products in a store.��Second-hand clothes shipped from the UK, they said the supply crunch had hit the industry hard. “We can no longer buy bundles (of clothes) directly, so now we buy clothes from traders we used to work with.”
The Dark Side of Fashion
Since the 1990s Since 1998, due to the growing demand for Western fashion in Africa and Eastern Europe, large-scale commercial trade activities in importing second-hand clothing from Europe, the United States and other emerging markets have begun to flourish.
Such strong demand has caused the fashion market to expand rapidly. According to data from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a sustainable development charity, global clothing production has almost doubled in the past 15 years. Fan.
In March 2019, the United Nations Environment Program stated that the fashion industry is the second largest water consumer in the world, and its carbon emissions account for 10% of the global total, which is greater than the emissions of all international flights and shipping. It adds up to more.
Meanwhile, excess clothing creates an ever-increasing amount of waste, which ends up in landfill.
In the UK, consumers buy more clothes per person than in any other country in Europe, circa the 1980s, according to a 2019 UK parliamentary report by the Environmental Audit Committee 5 times. The report states that approximately 300,000 tonnes of clothing is landfilled or incinerated in the UK every year.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States produces nearly 17 million tons of textile waste every year, equivalent to 29 billion pairs of jeans. Two-thirds of it ends up in landfill.
Anna Smith, a PhD researcher at King’s College London, is working on a circular economy system designed to eliminate waste. “The whole problem is getting worse,” she said. “People are consuming more and more.” Many fast-fashion retailers, including Zara and H&M, encourage customers to buy items they no longer need. Send your old clothes back to the store for recycling. H&M also offers discounts to customers who support clothing recycling.
A spokesman for Inditex, Zara’s parent company, said only a small proportion of the clothing the company collects ends up being sold back on international markets. H&M said clothes recycled in its stores are processed by I:CO, a division of German textile recycling company Soex.
Recently, Japanese fast fashion brand Uniqlo launched a recycling program called Re. Uniqlo, which aims to recycle consumers’ second-hand unused brand clothing and make it into new products. The first product planned to be launched by Re. Uniqlo is a V-neck down jacket made from 100% recycled materials. </p
