Waste colonialism in the second-hand clothing trade: findings from Fashion for Good's research

Fashion for Good is publishing the initial results of Project Rewear, which was launched in 2024 to analyse second-hand clothing streams, with a view to viable recycling and resale.

The non-profit was founded in 2017 with support from the Laudes Foundation (formerly the C&A Foundation). It now collaborates with fashion partners such as Adidas and Inditex to plan and fund research for circular fashion. For Project Rewear, the organisation had 8,280 garments analysed at sorting facilities in countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Lithuania and Poland. These were mainly items from brands such as H&M (277 pieces), Zara (225 pieces) and Adidas (183 pieces). In-depth interviews were also conducted with stakeholders in the second-hand sector.

Perfectly good clothing still discarded

A notable conclusion from the study is that the value of second-hand clothing is subjective. It is shaped by trends, clothing style and popularity more than physical quality. Brand recognition proved to be a determining factor in resale value. The report suggests that clothing is not primarily discarded because the product is no longer good. The fashion economy does not assign it the value it has on paper. As with new clothing, hype counts for more than quality.

This would also explain why clothing with minor, easily fixable damage is often not repaired. 37 percent of the clothing in the sample was in perfect condition and 41 percent had only one minor defect.

Decline in quality

The authors do state that only 5 to 10 percent of what comes into sorters is of the best quality. They call this fraction ‘cream’. The companies attribute this to the decline in the quality of new items over the past 15 years. This does not mean that the clothing is immediately unwearable, but that defects appear more quickly.

At the Kantamanto market in Ghana, Fashion for Good collected and examined some 2,500 garments. Colour loss was the biggest problem, followed by stains and a stretched-out construction, which ruins the fit. This clothing arrived under the code for worn clothing (HS 6309) instead of waste (HS 6310) – which is what it actually is. The authors state this is often done deliberately to circumvent stricter regulations on waste transport.

Overview of types of damage. Credits: Fashion for Good

Clothing is perfectly functional

According to the Repair Monitor Dashboard (2023), only 2.6 percent of garments that end up in Dutch Repair Cafés are irreparable. Most repairs are easy (57.5 percent) or of medium difficulty (11.3 percent). This means that textiles can easily remain in circulation after a minor refurbishment. The problem is that even small repairs often cost more than the resale price. These costs include cleaning; repair and return logistics; taking a new photograph; and possibly re-authenticating the item, which is necessary to offer it again. The authors state that AI cannot replace this extensive manual work.

Repairs are therefore carried out sparingly. Sorting facilities prefer to focus on efficient classification. Sorters sometimes perform targeted repairs, but usually only for high-end luxury items – the crème de la crème. At one sorter studied, only 50 of the 47 million kilograms of clothing were repaired in 2023.

The researchers conclude that as long as consumers only accept the artificially low price of new clothing, the resale market has little chance of success, particularly in the lower segment.

Quality classes of second-hand clothing from Project Rewear. Credits: Fashion for Good

Waste colonialism

Fashion for Good also conducted analyses on resale in Ghana and Pakistan, two key points for the flow of second-hand goods. An important side note is that in such countries, a healthy textile market existed before the rise of the current fashion system, around 1960. The efficient industry has shifted local trade from clothing production to waste processing – which the authors state is not fair, but is the reality.

More than 86 percent of the garments from the sample at the Kantamanto market in Accra arrived in poor condition, even though they were labelled ‘reusable’. The report states that traders must bear the financial and ecological consequences of this unsaleable stock. The Ghanaian second-hand clothing market receives 15 million garments weekly, which often do find a final destination; traders, upcyclers and repairers work together to ensure that huge quantities of textiles do not end up in landfill.

While Kantamanto is primarily a trading hub, Pakistan takes on more of a sorting role. It imports more than 800,000 tonnes annually, a large part of which is exported to East Africa. The Rewear project shows that sorting significantly increases value, from 411 to 527 dollars per tonne on import to 878 to 931 dollars per tonne when it leaves the country. The Karachi Export Processing Zone alone employs more than 10,000 people. Outside the regulated zones, this work is often poorly regulated and wages are below the minimum wage.

With these case studies, Fashion for Good also addresses the issue of waste colonialism. Second-hand textiles are shipped abroad under the guise of reuse, but with no guarantee that the destination has the infrastructure to process it as waste if necessary. This reflects a familiar pattern of inequality rooted in colonial fashion history.

Rewear not an option for fast fashion

For fast fashion, the costs consistently outweigh the resale value. Nevertheless, the authors see added value in the second-hand market, if only for the 'cream' fraction.

For example, AI-powered sorting can generate a profit turnaround from zero to 6.5 million euros per year for a medium-sized facility. Consumer behaviour is also moving in the right direction: in 2024, 58 percent of respondents had bought second-hand clothing, and among younger shoppers, almost half said “vintage” was their first choice (an increase of 7 percent since 2022).

According to second-hand platform ThredUp, the value of the global second-hand clothing market is growing almost three times as fast as that of new fashion, reaching 367 billion dollars in 2029. This business interest could further motivate the industry to address the problems in its infrastructure.

There is also support from Brussels: the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The revised Waste Framework Directive will come into force on October 16, 2025, making EPR mandatory for textiles and footwear. EPR fees will be modulated, which can help to alleviate market failures.

For Project Rewear, Fashion for Good organised three pilots to steer the sorting system in the right direction. Save Your Wardrobe created a tool that helps brands identify strategic opportunities in refurbishment and repair. United Repair Centre investigated how these repairs can lead to a higher value for the European second-hand market. Reverse.fashion developed AI-driven solutions for more efficient sorting.

The authors state that ultimately, all such efforts must come together as a single intervention to reshape clothing waste management. If this does not happen, “rewear” will remain a separate market instead of the intended circular counterbalance.

State of the second-hand circuit

According to Circle Economy, only 0.3 percent of worn clothing will be kept in circulation in 2024, while more than 92 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away annually. Meanwhile, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) reports that the EU's export of used textiles has tripled since 2000, from 550,000 tonnes to almost 1.7 million tonnes in 2023.

Separate collection is a challenge in itself. The Netherlands performs with a percentage between 37 and 50, compared to 10 to 12 in Spain, 18 in Poland and 11 in Lithuania.

The second-hand circuit also creates a lot of employment. Scientific research from 2024 shows that 1.28 million people are employed in the second-hand clothing sectors of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia alone, with each tonne of imported clothing being associated with an average of 6.5 jobs.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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