Our used clothing yet many of the features. The Textile exporters. But In Africa it is fighting against the flood of used clothing, which flooded markets and destroyed.
On the largest market in East Africa, the Owino market, Second-Hand clothes the most part of the goods.
The wheel with new clothes is turning faster and faster. There used to be every Season a new collection is now up to 24 collections a year in the shops. Not overflowing then home the closets, bring out the German in your no longer worn clothes to the old clothes container. Since the mid-1990s, the old clothes tide is swelled by 20 percent – and it continues to grow. “In Germany each year, around a Million tonnes of textiles in used clothing collections. This is really a huge amount,” says Thomas Ahlmann fair rating. In this umbrella Association have joined more than 130 non-profit used clothing collection organisations.
Such donations are super is helped to the needy and protect the environment because the clothes are recycled! Just In Germany there are not so many people in need. Less than ten percent of discarded clothing is used by charitable organizations, in whose name the collection container are positioned. The Rest buy commercial clothes collector.
Over 100 billion pieces of clothing are produced every year, worn short, and thrown away, says Greenpeace
Of the donation to the goods
Through the sale of the German Red cross, a takes, for example, around 13.5 million euros a year – it will be used for charitable purposes. At the same time dress has become a donation to the goods. A tiny fraction – between two and four percent is in such good condition that it is sold in Second-hand shops in Germany or Western Europe. With him, the majority of sales is made. A further 40 per cent are exported in different qualities. About ten percent ends up in the trash. The Rest is recycled and processed into cleaning rags.
The disposal of the inferior textiles a grant business that must be subsidized by the sale of the better pieces. For the commercial provider of the effort seems to be paying off. The demand for used clothing from Germany and other industrial countries. The clothes go to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and especially to Africa. So our donation as the goods creates jobs in the Sorting plants, Transport and trade in the countries themselves.
Dress donation, which comes to Africans?
And it causes more Good, because Second-hand clothing for many is the only opportunity to buy textiles for cheap, and it is, at least from a fair rating. In particular, in rural regions in Africa, they have a great importance for the basic supply of clothing.” In the meantime, there are numerous studies that show that the local textile industry can not meet the growing needs on the ground,” says Susanne Pohl from the German Red cross.
It was not, but even to indigence, says Friedel Hütz-Adams, Südwind Institute. The second-hand clothes “to go up in the African countries, the payment are capable of, this has to do with means nothing”. Thus, the used clothing imports of the Congo are very low, although there would be millions of internal refugees. “Can’t pay, so only relatively few and rather poor quality old clothes go there. And if a country such as India has the largest number of poor, a ban on the import of used clothing, and the Indians not to run naked through the area, then this shows that the current old clothes trade, with the satisfaction of needs of the poor has little to do,” says Hütz-Adams.
Work – but the Wrong one
As far as the basic supply – and the jobs? Wouldn’t it be better if the African countries themselves, would produce textiles instead of importing second-hand clothes? “The number of people on the second-hand market of textiles, so Schneider, the seller, and so on, is far greater, says Susanne Pohl from the German Red cross is, as the number of job opportunities in the textile industry”,.
In Africa, it does not seem to be very convinced that the Import of old clothes is creating so many valuable jobs. Many countries would prefer to build his own textile production. For decades, they produce the cotton, which is then exported, but as raw material, and elsewhere, for further processing. Blame it on the bale, compressed used clothes that has flooded the African market and so the once-existing local production of fabrics and textiles destroyed. This was already confirmed in 2012 in a small request in the German Bundestag.
In bales of old clothes waiting for the recycling
Hütz-Adams told us he had heard Concerned in Africa, is often unloved competition, claims: “The African producers see the Whole as, in contrast to Chinese products – in a very unfair competition. You say, as donations will be delivered were free of charge and by the fact that these donations are for free made, have a price advantage on the market, you can no longer catch up with the self-produced goods.” The clothes had been for many producers on the African continent the death-knell in the 1990s, although other factors such as poor infrastructure or insecurity of energy supplies with the decline of domestic production would have contributed, Hütz-Adams.
Ahlmann fair rating maintains the new low-cost production countries for the real Problem. “In principle, it is useful when raw materials are processed, where they occur,” he says. There are also efforts in Africa’s own textile and clothing industry. But in each African country, there is in addition to the Second Hand also always be a market for new goods that is dominated by Asian virgin material, as it is in Europe.”
Import prohibitions for dress donations
Nevertheless, many countries in Africa, the Second hand seem to be-Ware as a major Problem for the domestic market. Already years ago, some countries have banned the Import of Second-hand clothing, including Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. In 2016, the East African community (EAC) ventured and announced that the Import of used clothing, shoes and leather goods, stop by 2019. Until then, you want to increase the import taxes each year.
On the question of why African countries do, if old clothes are abgeblich no competition, responds Ahlmann say: “We of the fair rating, that is a political question, African countries need to answer for themselves.” Also by Susanne Pohl from the Red cross, it says succinctly: “It is often seen then is often of the own governments as a matter of Dignity. The need to decide on a government for themselves.”
The Deputy head of the Kenyan chamber of Commerce and industry, James Mureu believes: “such A ban would promote the local textile industry.” Even if at first it would be difficult to meet the demand from the local production. Currently, only around 15 per cent of the East African countries would be processed cotton produced locally, the Rest will be exported, says the East African Business Council. Also, the Association supports, therefore, the used clothing trade, gradually to abolish.
In the United States, where approximately one billion US dollars per year with used clothing are to be implemented, the bells rang in alarm. Of the largest used clothing exporter in the world threatened with trade war and the African States, with a buckled – up in Rwanda.
Under pressure from the USA, Kenya has backed down. Will be sold on the Gikomba Second Hand market in Nairobi to continue our old stuff.
Rwanda is out of step
In order to strengthen the domestic economy, Rwanda 2016 verzwölffacht the customs duties for the import of second-hand clothes, for the Import of Second-Hand be shoes since then, ten Times the duties due, as before. The result is that Since June of this year, Rwanda’s textile industry to export in the framework of the trade agreement AGOA duty-free in the United States.
In the short term, the gap caused by a missing of Second hand clothing will be covered by Goods from Asia,” says She Rodgers of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). “In the long term, however, we believe that we can take part of this market itself,” he says, “it is important for us, for our textile industry to expand.”
In Rwanda, the textile industry, meanwhile, is still timid. Some of the local producers welcome the Second-Hand spell. If there is only once sufficient local producers, these could be competitive, says Ritesh Patel from Rwandan manufacturers Uterxwa. But still it is difficult to produce the clothes cheap enough for buyers in Rwanda and in neighbouring countries.
Especially in Asian countries such as here in Cambodia, more the masses are produced at cheap dresses
And the environment ???
At the end the environmental Argument. After all, nearly half of the Secondhand is recycled clothing, instead of going directly in the trash. But many of the collections can only sell because they are so cheap. Your fuel is Polyester, it is said of the environmental organization Greenpeace. 60 percent of the clothing would be, in the meantime, from the petroleum-based synthetic fiber, whose production is emitting three times more climate-damaging greenhouse gas than cotton. Micro-fibers made of Polyester, polluted waters, and are mainly due to their impact on marine life explosive, laments Greenpeace. In addition, Polyester would be mixed often with natural materials, whereby the materials were not recyclable.
Hütz-Adams, the environmental argument eh measure: “We will buy the new stuff, but when it comes to the Ökoaspekt, then this does not mean that we are to wear the items for as long as you actually have a life-time, but the to make others.”
The farmers, who have poorly paid work the cotton in Africa to be planted, shall then be glad that you get such a cheap Thrift-basic equipment through our stored clothes.