No One Wants Used Clothes Anymore (2018)
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Our model is a bit unique. We purchase the same 100lb and 500lb bales the international distributors do. We have a team that processes the bales, categorizes the clothes, and then merch/list them in a marketable and fun way on the site.
Textile waste is the 2nd largest polluter behind oil & gas. If we can help create a culture of buying second-hand first, we think there's a massive opportunity to put a dent in climate change.
We just got some of our first press yesterday. :) https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/amp/Houston-dres...
tl;dr WE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR CLOTHES. :)
Isn't this just an advertising platform? Why would we address criticisms here?
There used to be a store like that in Cambridge next to MIT where real estate was essentially free. We used to go to one where you just filed a plastic bag; the bag was weighed and you paid $1/lb. Great for parties and amazing finds.
I liked the clothes I got from there though! I found a cool jacket once.
Yes, kids are dumb.
Is MIT built in/near a dump or something? Or you mean it was but definitely isn’t essentially free now? Or?
I went to high school in Boston (the city on other side of the river) which was much more dangerous. At MIT I never felt my life was in danger.
I mean, I guess if it doesn’t sell, they just bale it up again and off it goes to its original destination.
Their only cost is the initial sifting and warehousing.
And even then, they might be able to sell their pre-sifted inventory at higher prices baled-up for export.
Books aren’t too different:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/business/23shortcuts.html
I ask because, as much as I think US consumers can benefit from them, my greater concern is that they simply don't go to waste.
Either way, it's the first I've heard of your service, and it sounds fantastic. How do I get you my old clothes? Or is it aggregated and sold on to you through the network of goodwill stores and other thrift shops?
This is the sort of problem I love to hear being solved by tech & advanced logistics, rather than the latest startup that hopes to catch a piece of the advertising pie.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/26/434988401/epis...
By traditional usage of the word dumping, donating use items doesn't qualify. It's not being done to gain a non-competetive economic advantage. It's a semantic issue though: decide you want to construe the word a bit more abstractly and you can make it fit.
Lexical and semantic issue aside, freeing up local resources (people's time) to focus on education and learning higher level skills seems a reasonable plan. Not unlike what a family does when freeing up the time of it's youngest members to focus on learning. Of course in the context of foreign aid to a country, it presumes you don't just air drop in supplies for basic needs and leave it at that. If you're really interested in bootstrapping a population to a higher quality of life, you have to still ensure that learning etc. are available along with the capital infrastructure to create businesses and industries that utilize that learning. I'm not sure the developed world, when lending a hand to less developed countries, always gets that second part right.
Producing something efficiently for cheap is not dumping.
Sorry, but 'third world' is really only offensive to people from first world countries who find the term 'third world' offensive. Oh, and it might also be offensive to people in developing countries who can afford developed countries' lifestyles.
I may not agree with the usage either, but that's what I see all around the third world countries that I've been to, and the one where I have lived since I was born. No one really cares, and no one is offended (except see previous paragraph).
- "third world" should include Switzerland and Austria, as they were neutral during the cold war
- "developing countries" should not include places in major wars or civil wars (such as for example not Yemen), as they're clearly not developing, but rather deteriorating.
- as you point out, "global south" should include the wealthy Australia.
It also expands into other examples of hypocrisy, such as the term "African-American", which is just an euphemism for black Americans (which itself suggest that being black is bad somehow), but due to its clumsiness also includes lots of non-black people, such as Tunesian-Americans (no black people there).
Yes, that's it. You said it better than I did.
I had no idea it was related to the USSR at all and had just assumed third world strictly meant a poor nation
There is one article talking about the effect on local industry. The gist of it is that you help people out by giving them free stuff, but you kill the local food/clothing/shoe industry and therefore trap the very communities you intend to help into a cycle where they can never start businesses and raise their standard of living because nobody will buy their stuff because they get it for free through aid.
Also, the term "third world" is not offensive and most people are tired of playing this game where some group declares some term offensive and we are all expected to stop using it. You don't get to dictate the language people use to talk and think about the world around them.
I personally wear almost exclusively second hand clothes. The only things I buy new are shoes and underwear.
Tell me more. Can I mail you a box?
The idea of buying clothes then donate them after 6-12 months has always been broken. With growing kids (or if you gain/ lose a bunch of weight) you don't have a ton of choice. For most adults, the only way you can really ensure you have an environmentally friendly wardrobe is by purchasing carefully and keeping clothes until they genuinely wear out. For jeans and good quality jackets, that can be decades.
When you donate clothes to St Vinny's (Goodwill/ Salvation Army/ whatever), they keep the best/ resealable clothes and dispose of the rest. A bunch gets dumpstered. The only reason they accept used clothing is because of the small percentage they can actually resell.
[1] Excluding underwear and socks!
If you want one made, there are companies and quilters everywhere that make them.
As for cost, the idea that they are expensive depends on how you view the work. I love quilting but understand that what I sell them for keeps me in fabric. I'm not earning a living from it.
Usually this means getting them all together, calling around to find how much it costs to actually make a quilt, then putting them back in storage.
Takes a lot more time and effort to make a quilt than people think.
It was made before we met, so I don't have a sense for the cost. As a functional swaddle of memories, it is worth far more than a blanket from the store.
One thought for those considering it -- the shirts can't be completely worn out. A threadbare shirt will make a threadbare quilt.
T-shirts already have a front and back. You just need some long running stitches to join two shirts together. Shove them with the amount of batting you want, and then another running stitch to seal them up.
Hand sewing a quilt is a big effort. If you love doing it, it's awesome. If you don't, it's just massively frustrating and time consuming.
I say this as somebody who hates all parts of sewing except old machines.
I think you found the next YC business idea
These are shirts I've worn for a week straight trekking through Central American rainforests.
However the cotton fabric used in most off the shelf clothing is also not what it used to be. My dad, who doesn't like to throw things away, still has his old clothes from when he was in his 30s (he is in his late 70s now). They've retained their shape far better than my 3 year old clothes.
I've had phenomenally gross post-ride jerseys (literally crusted with sweat), but doing this they don't get stinky. I agree that the key is to not let them stay wet and let bacteria grow in it. Get them dry fast, all is good.
Over here in the UK and much of Europe, the charities sell them by the ton to traders that ship them to Africa or other developing countries.
Some charities don't even handle them, they enter into a contract with a third party that specialises in the trade that collects the clothes and then pays the charity a fixed amount of money per ton. The whole service is branded, so you would think that you're donating to the charity directly when in fact they are paid by the trader by weight.
They also have a book company who have a similar arrangement, they pay a few pence per book, though IIRC they do make use of the books as-is rather than shredding.
Donated stuff is treated the same way, and just the proceeds used as a donation to help the third world. Read the fine print on the used-clothes-bin.
Regardless, even when they were shipping them out, the environmental cost of shipping and repurposing was always higher than the cost of just using what you had.
Amused by family pics where I recognize a garment that's older than my oldest kid being worn by the new toddler.
What's the secret?!
The problem with the most department store jeans, no matter the price, is that they use fabric made on high-speed wide looms. These looms use light and smooth thread so they can weave fast. The fabric comes out very light (because of the thin thread) and does not hold together quite well (because the fabric is held together by friction, reduced by the smoothness of the thread).
Of course, it makes no sense to buy expensive jeans for durability. $400 24oz jeans probably will last for 20-30 years but so will 10 pairs of $40 jeans from Target.
Thickness counts for durability, and you have choices. I'm not sure what durability is like for cotton blends (it's rarely more than 3-4% synthetic). I have doubts that mass-produced denim of similar weight is significantly more or less durable than denim from traditional looms. The only differences I can think of that would impact this would be staple length and chemicals used in processing. Pre-faded, bleached, or distressed denim will obviously be less durable.
20 years sounds high to me. I have jeans less than a year old already showing crotch wear. Granted, this is expected, and it can be repaired before it's an issue.
For work (if style is less of a concern), Duluth Trading makes pants that last an order of magnitude longer than carhartt.
A word to the wise though; while my raw denim jeans are several years old now and in good condition, you sounds like you're dramatically harder on your clothes than myself.
https://www.nextdirect.com/CountrySelect
They do look worn, but I don’t care.
Lately though this hasn't been going as well. I think partly due to Covid lock downs I've gained some weight around the middle and some jeans no longer fit. I'm resisting buying replacement jeans hoping to lose the weight instead. Not going well so far.
The best thing you can do is buy quality clothing, take good care of it and repair it when necessary, before it wears out completely. That can extend the life of an item significantly, but not indefinitely.
Buy good quality wool, wool blends, thick cotton twill, heavy selvedge denim and similar fabrics. They're durable and take repairs well. I've never had much luck with hemp, and linen is too fussy for me, but I'm not ruling them out.
If you don't mind synthetic fibers, you can get some very light yet durable clothing. The drawback is that a lot of it will come from outdoor brands and look like it.
By dispose, what you mean is send them to Africa or other undeveloped regions. In virtually all of the 35 African countries I spent time in I would see clothes for sale in local markets that still had (St Vinny's/Goodwill/ Salvation Army) tags on them.
There are other issues, for instance: child labor makes most clothes in Asian countries. The labor is hidden behind opaque international sub-contracting agreements, making it impossible to audit the supply chain.
Ethical clothes are expensive to make. Go to US Target store and you can buy a three-pack of "Fruit of the Loom" T-Shirts for about $10, go do Everlane, who explicitly states their profit, cost, and logistics chain, and T-shirts are $20/each.
It is still running rampant in the past decade:
[1] https://www.panaprium.com/blogs/i/fashion-brands-that-still-... [2] https://phys.org/news/2017-06-tackling-child-labour-fashion-...
Reminds me of a Jack quote from 30 Rock:
> It's not "handmade in USA," it's pronounced "hahnd-made in Oosa." The Hand people are a Vietnamese slave tribe, and USA is their island prison. THEY made your jeans. Do you know how they get the stitching so small? [whispers] Orphans.
Well maybe if the parents would be paid a bit more these kids would be given a chance to fair better in life by going to school. What is that comment? demand for lower priced clothes, "infinite growth" and investors always demanding higher returns absolutely causes all that child exploitation.
Your comment is either ignorant or downright dismissive of a problem directly caused by us, western consumers.
It's akin to saying "at least the slave is fed", exact same puritan mindset.
So unfortunately, buying their labor at cheap rates seems to be the best way to transfer wealth right now, at least a big scale [0].
[0] - On a smaller scale individuals can donate to charities like Against Malaria Foundation or GiveDirectly, which I highly recommend everyone does if they have excess wealth.
This is not the only option, and this defeatist attitude is dangerous. There are many charities operating in third-world countries that are incredibly efficient and are delivering real impact right now. Here’s a few: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
Now, obviously scaling it up will be difficult, but all these charities are currently cash constrained, so there’s still some room to grow, and after that point, I’m sure it’s not an intractable problem to figure out a working model.
The “corrupt government” excuse is common one to justify inaction, but given the existence of so many organizations doing good work, I don’t it’s applicable anymore.
- Buy clothes made using child labour, the children and their families get a bit of additional income. - Don't buy clothes made using child labour, the children and their families don't get a bit of additional income.
Most likely, these children are working because without this income, it's difficult for them to meet their needs for survival. Given that, the choosing option 2 will clearly leave this children and their families worse off. I'm not sure how that's a controversial statement, it's simply describing the situation as it is. Denying harsh realities doesn't make things better for those children.
Now, the ideal situation is just a direct wealth transfer from rich countries to poor countries, and I would be in favor of that. But people in rich countries value the lives of people in their countries many times more than those in poor countries, so I doubt this will happen anytime soon.
Here's a few options:
1. buy second hand
Cheapest and best for the environment
2. buy local
stimulates local economy, doesn't give money to another big corporation ready to exploit another country
3. buy fair trade
4. stop buying so many things
It really isn't that difficult.
------------
The harsh reality is that we all are to blame for the predicament of those countries and we try to brush it off, just like you just did. We choose to buy cheap without checking where things are from. We choose not to support local industries. We choose politicians that choose not to prosecute companies for crimes in other countries. We choose to give big companies money which they then use to corrupt foreign countries in order to exploit them. We choose to justify our consumerism with "at least I'm giving them a job".
You really think that those countries would be in such disarray without our involvement? Do you think if multi-nationals had less power, the support of their western politicians and populace, that they'd be able to mess around in foreign countries and take away opportunities for the foreign populace?
It's clearly not a false dichotomy, since 3 of those options will leave those in the working in the global poor worse off. Buying fair trade will help those in the global poor, so that's a good option.
Note that I did not use this to justify slave labour. That's obviously bad, and they will be better off not working under slave labour. We should refuse to buy goods produced from slave labour. I am specifically focusing on those who work "voluntarily"[0] in exchange for pay.
> we try to brush it off, just like you just did.
Did you read my comment? I said, "Now, the ideal situation is just a direct wealth transfer from rich countries to poor countries, and I would be in favor of that." How is that brushing it off? I advocated for giving them money/aid/etc. directly (and is something I do on a small scale personally, by donating to charities that help people in the global poor).
What it comes down to at the end is that these people are working these jobs because the alternative is starvation or the like. If you're saying we should stop buying from them (indirectly, through a large company), you need to pair that with a direct transfer of some form of aid to make up for the lost income. Otherwise, you are directly making them worse off. Before, they earned some money for their labour, now they don't.
> The harsh reality is that we all are to blame for the predicament of those countries
If we're to blame, we can't just tell them "Sorry, I know you need this income to sustain yourself, but I'm not comfortable with those working conditions, so I'm going to give my money to someone in a first world country instead."
[0] - Ie. They decided they are better off working this job, than not working this job.
16x9 - Child Labour: The Dark Side of Chocolate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXWFXeIZY9g
Documentary. The Dark Side Of Chocolate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vfbv6hNeng
No HN has always been extremely classist like that, it's the startup world where "we're just an app" and humans that aren't engineers or entrepreneurs are seen as yet another disposable resource to be exploited in order to fake it till you IPO...
This is not the worst dehumanizing comment I've seen on this website, unfortunately.
the "at least the slaves aren't starving" argument. Maybe if westerners paid them a bit more, which they can afford, their parents would send these kids to school instead.
This doesn't bother you?
... contain toxic dyes and conditioners
... are a huge source of pollution
... are of lower quality year by year (what I've been told by people who are into the scene)
See also sibling comment.
Perhaps we could add the funguses that decompose plastics into the mix and create a full-circle clothing-to-paper or fabric process.
This makes the song[1] by the White stripes make so much more sense. I didn't realize rag and bone man was a particular thing, I thought it was just something similar to what was called a gypsie lifestyle or similar in the past.
Not just synthetics, there are a lot of <10% synthetic/cotton blends. I'm not sure if there's a good way to separate the fibers.
But the article isn't really about that. The article is about how making stuff new nowadays is so cheap that there is barely any cost savings over making stuff out of recycled material. This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. But it's also because a lot of the costs of making stuff new are so externalized that nobody's paying them. Also, people are so accustomed to the cheap stuff that most people wouldn't even know how to differentiate between good quality and bad. They've outsourced that discrimination to brands but the brands have wised up and there isn't as much of a relationship between the brand equity/prestige of a luxury brand and quality as there used to be.
Because, for the most part, our clothing doesn't serve any purpose besides signaling, in the west. Most fast fashion is about looks - not function.
If you do serious physical work, the cheap stuff will fall apart and right quick. If you travel a lot and wear a suit 5+ days a week, cheap suits will constantly fail you. But most people don't have that issue - so they just go with what they can afford and gets the job done.
There is also a floor for how cheap thrift stores can sell things, because it requires labor to sort through clothing donations and figure out what is actually still in resalable condition, and stores need staff as well.
Not really because the fast fashion types of clothes don't hold up well over time.
> The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing.
The trends leading to this are because people can afford to buy new. The clothes are cheaper and don't last as long. They're so cheap that it ends up being cheaper to buy new ones and throw them away than to bother trying to recycle them (because thrifting and recycling have their own supply chain costs).
Two things going on here. First just the general race to lower prices means you have less material used in most brand's items and it's designed to be manufactured cheaply not to last. Which is different than designing it to break fast. Breaking faster is a side effect of saving money during manufacturing, not the goal.
Second is survivorship bias. There were plenty of junk products in the past but those are already at dumps. The vintage items you see in stores were either high quality in their day or were not used before sitting on a shelf for a very long time.
Yup. I've long suspected that tee-shirt manufacturers do extensive research to find the cotton-blend that goes from crisp white to dull yellow after just one wear and stays yellow no matter what amount of bleach/detergent is applied.
I know people who run a vintage store, and they still hit the thrift stores. Along with garage sales and estate sales. They can go through racks in a thrift store and find items they can get for $5 and turn around and sell the next day for $200. I love the smell of arbitrage in the morning.
Although now that they're established, they've got other people doing the digging and bringing stuff straight to them.
The olden days were not better. Obligatory-"survivorship bias"
Does anyone have recommendations for longer lasting every day clothes? I feel like I often have dress shirts and pants/jeans that wear out more quickly than they should. Dress shirts tend to have holes wear in the elbow area and pants tend to wear in the pockets where I have phone/keys.
For the shirts, you could sew patches on the elbows, but the would probably be at-home/casual shirts at that point.
The skill of mending clothes is one I think many people don't think about, out maybe they just don't think it's something they want to do. It's not rocket science at all, and there are tons of guides and videos or there to show the various stitches and techniques.
I mend all of my clothes when they start to wear, fix and replace buttons, even slight alterations to fit. When a piece of clothing finally becomes overall too threadbare, I harvest buttons and sometimes zippers, as well as scraps of remaining good quality fabric, all for future repairs.
My current pants are all from the Finnish store Varusteleka. Their ordinary jeans are good, their tactical jeans are amazing, and their worker pants are a breath of fresh old-fashioned air, with high waists, pleats and buttons for proper suspenders.
The materials chosen are solid, as is the workmanship, although you wouldn't call it superlative. Like the style, it's practical, not flashy.
I like their wool shirts too.
Don’t buy shoes with EVA/foam soles, problem solved. All my shoes have leather, vibram (rubber), or dainite soles. All of them can be resoled as well.
A few brands to get you started, prices range from $200-$500ish but mostly $200-$350
Shoes: Grant Stone, Allen Edmonds, Meermin, Carmina
Boots: Red Wing, Wesco, White’s, Thorogood, Chippewa
But Im having more and more difficulty finding that real good classic shor that is well made and is maintainable/fixable and which is a good fit and could be happy with for a couple of years. I live in NYC and the market here is innundated in low quality crap. Even an expensive brand such as Prada doesn’t have well made shoes, they’re made to not last very long
they are not stylish. they will last forever. you send them your measurements and they make a form (last) which they keep and you can order against again. that first pair had some minor fit issues, I sent corrections and the second pair was a perfect fit.
And I'm not passing judgement. I just don't get it.
I wear my nicer clothes to go out.
When they're no longer nice I wear them around the house.
When they get holes or stains in them I wear them to do yard work.
After that they either become rags or they go into the garbage.
At no point have I ever said "I no longer want to wear this, I'll sell it for a buck and buy something new".
Me either, but I do get to the point where my closet and dresser are full, and I have clothes in them that I haven't worn in years. The pipeline starts to get clogged right after the "nice enough for going out and/or work" stage, because everything lasts so much longer in the "comfy in the house" stage than it does in the "nice" stage. Plus things change from year to year: how nicely I dress at work, how often I go out, where I go when I go out. Some people have changes in location and climate or in their body size. And sometimes you just look at something and realize it isn't you anymore. Am I ever again going to wear the barn jacket my parents bought me twenty years ago? Maybe, under circumstances I can't foresee right now, but in the meantime it's warm and has a ton of life left in it, so why not pass it on?
In North America I think most people do. Charity/Thrift shops are packed to the brim with used clothing not to mention organizations that very specifically bring used clothing items to those in need.
I believe most people do not keep all their clothing items until they are entirely worn out. Changes in taste, body changes, getting rid of unused items, moving to a location with a different climate etc.
In most cases people are donating the clothes not reselling them. You put it in a bag and drop it off.
If stuff doesn't fit anymore, but it's in good condition then it's nice to donate.
The other reason I could think of would be fashion, but I'm not particularly fashionable so that doesn't affect me. I could imagine it being a reason for people though.
Recently my wife complemented me on another sweater she didn't remember seeing (we've been married about seven years). I told her I bought it in 1976. It's a bit odd looking (and I think she was being polite), but warm.
Otoh, I have worn through the knee of a number of jeans, and they either get turned into shorts or donated (and probably turned into rags). Recently I was quickly wearing out the left elbow of long sleeve shirts, but this stopped with covid. Either I was wearing it out on my office desk (it's L-shaped, with the arm part of the L on my left) or on my car door (as in most of the world, the driver's side of my car is on the left).
Well, if you have a "lack of wealth thing", then you should immediately be able to grasp some advantages of this:
(1) second hand clothes are cheaper to buy (or free in some cases).
(2) second hand clothes means you make some money selling your old clothes, instead of throwing them away.
If what's alien to you is how would anyone "throw clothes away", that still seems like a strange question.
Unless we're talking about some developing country, tons of people in the West and elsewhere get new clothes and stop wearing old ones, which can then give away. Women sterotypically (and statistically) more so, following seasonal fashion, but also tons of men.
You don't need to have "wealth" to do so. Even people living with average wages do stop wearing old clothes all the time.
And of course some do so by necessitity too, because their kids outgrow their clothes sizes, or because they themselves got fatter/skinner and their old clothes wont do them anymore.
>At no point have I ever said "I no longer want to wear this, I'll sell it for a buck and buy something new".
Well, did you ever consider that you're in the minority here? I've myself never considered to do some things millions of people do, but I do know that most others do them....
> When they're no longer nice I wear them around the house.
> When they get holes or stains in them I wear them to do yard work.
Well that's if you have a yard and have space to store old clothes. I think most people (at least young people) live in small apartments and can't afford that.
And I used "yard work" as code for "any kind of work that would ruin nice clothes" but I think that you can visualize non wealthy people who live in semi rural or rural areas.
Also, if I didn't have the space to store old clothes, which can be a $5 plastic box in a closet, they would go in the garbage bin, not to the goodwill, because like I said before I stop wearing my clothes when they've become too worn to give away.
There's all the t-shirts that get handed out at work or volunteering that are required to wear at a specific event. College students at some universities get a lot of these, but don't have much space to store them.
There's gifts from well-meaning family members that don't fit or are totally inappropriate (clothes for the wrong gender, fancy clothes that have to be dry-cleaned and don't follow the work dress code).
There's clothes that used to fit but don't any more (again, basically everything teenagers and young adults own). There's clothes that were required for one job and aren't for a new one, especially clothes that would have to be dry-cleaned.
You have this strange situation where Westerners donate free clothes which are sold in Africa and undermine development of local industries. So called NGOs simply do the dirty work of Western corporate interests.
The Dirty Business of Old Clothes (Youtube) - https://bit.ly/3g9IuG8
The U.S. Is Fighting Rwanda Over Trading Used Clothes - https://bit.ly/3op1BPp
It is even worse with tomatoes -
Tomatoes and greed – the exodus of Ghana's farmers - https://bit.ly/3qsLbHG
Teach a man to fish, he will build an economy. Give him his daily free fish, he will be your dependent forever.
That's kind of the issue though. At a large enough scale, donations can undermine the value of creation / earning. A new show shop might not have much value in an economy that has a large enough supply of donated shoes constantly thrown into it. Since it's not valuable to build these shoe suppliers, they do not get built. The population becomes dependent on the donations, as existing infrastructure does not exist to support them if the donations suddenly stopped.
I believe this is why the original comment separated disaster relief from charity. Giving people their first pair of shoes for free from an external economy may not be necessarily bad, but subsequent pairs hinders growth of a local shoe economy.
DISCLAIMER: Shoes are pure example. If you disagree with the idea of this comment, please do not focus on the shoes.
purely monetary aid seems like a substantially greater risk. politics could turn off that faucet in an instant.
When a country is dominated by donated or secondhand goods, the need to develop the knowhow and ability to manufacture anything reliably and cost-effectively isn't needed for entry-level goods (since those are all available secondhand for cheap) but you can't bootstrap any manufacturing as a result.
I'm gonna call BS on this one. Do you have a source?
> Because what might be a casual £1 tip to you, might be a months wages to someone else.
I'm not seeing a problem with that. Why is it bad if someone gets a random bonus; an occasional lucky windfall? Where's the harm?
Because soon everyone and their dog will be looking for jobs that provide the opportunity of such an occasional lucky windfall. They will be crowding around the rich westerners, neglecting all the jobs that would actually be important for the local community.
If the supply of labor into Western tourist-oriented industries increases, the odds of getting a big tip reduce, and average wages remain the same. This restores the equilibrium.
> neglecting all the jobs that would actually be important for the local community.
Waiting tables, cooking, cleaning, and driving taxis and buses aren't important jobs for the local community? How do you define "important"? If these people had skills that paid more and/or led to higher prestige opportunities, don't you think they would take those jobs instead?
And what do you think they do with the occasional big tip they earn? They spend it on local goods and services, stimulating the local economy and providing opportunities to local entrepreneurs. They spend it on educating their children so they have better opportunities than waiting on wealthy tourists. They pay direct and indirect taxes (even unreported cash tips are spent on taxed goods) that allow their governments to fund infrastructure improvements (more opportunities for local entrepreneurs) and social services.
If you're too stingy to tip 15-20% when you go to poorer countries, just say that. I hate tipping culture in the US. But don't say you're doing it for their good, because that's just not true.
> free clothes which are sold in Africa and undermine development of local industries.
It makes no sense to waste resources and trash the environment to develop industries.
You can do this on a rpi3.
No need for machines, a supply chain, logistics.
Sure traditionally this was true, but it's a saturated developed market.
Had to take issue with the overly simplified economics here.
A friend of mine started ReCircled (https://recircled.com) to offer a 360-degree solution to fashion brands to help them get a garment recommerce solution implemented quickly.
The clothes used to be donated to local services who distributed them to those in need but starting two years ago those organizations no longer took used clothes. Many of them are so awash in money from rich donors that they buy new clothes and their clients no longer will accept used.
The only choice left was to donate to organizations who took the clothes and sold them to a local business who then either sell them locally at a high price (often higher than new) or ship them overseas.
Lately even that market has dried up and now used clothes go into the dumpster.
This isn't just clothes, but everything from housewares to high end electronics.
Actually, I do dream things like that sometimes...more or less: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotWearingPantsD...
They were almost all pressured out of their resolve (except Rwanda IIRC). Modern Opium Wars. So you see it doesn't matter that they don't want used clothes, they will bend to the might of America.
No One Wants _The Inconvenience of Shopping for_ Used Clothes Anymore
Put another way, selling used clothing online is difficult; the overhead significantly more than new clothes. For example, every used item is unique, a one-off. Therefore, all the work that goes into bringing it to market (e.g., photos, description, getting it on the website) must be baked into the margin of that single item.
In other words, it doesn't scale. The key would be to find something that does scale, and pairs well with the used clothing.
Not only is it better karmically, but new clothes are full of offgassing dyes and other synthchems, not great for a human's health.
Many I know are going this way too.
New clothing isn't cheap, there's an appreciable gap between new and used prices that allows an intermediary market to thrive. A t-shirt that's $35 new could be found at Goodwill for $5.
Obviously don't wash your jeans every time you wear them, but once a month if you wear them all the time is fine. Low temperature, gentle cycle, never tumble dry because that really wears out fabrics fast. Consider using liquid wool detergent, since it's more gentle and doesn't have abrasive particles.
Another good tip is to wear clothes on alternate days, and let them hang to air out between wears. Give them a good shake before putting them on, that takes care of a lot of dry dirt and dust, reducing abrasion.
Steaming works really well for wool and wool blends, for freshening up items that are nominally dry clean only. A clothes brush and a steamer can put off the need for dry cleaning for a long time. Spot cleaning takes care of actual stains and steaming loosens the fibers so they release a lot of the dirt stuck to them. Plus it should kill off most of any bacteria, too.
And don't buy Levi's, their quality is mediocre now.
These clothes wear out quick, are not timeless in design, and are not suitable for second-hand use. There's also a growing aversion to wearing someone else's clothing due to it feeling 'yucky'.
Either way, we have to find a solution since we throw away about 80 pounds of textiles per person in America (https://daily.jstor.org/fast-fashion-fills-our-landfills/). Only 20% of textiles are recycled (https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-issues-waste). Using natural fibers doesn't solve the environmental problems (https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-wast...):
> "Natural fibers go through a lot of unnatural processes on their way to becoming clothing," says Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. "They've been bleached, dyed, printed on, scoured in chemical baths." Those chemicals can leach from the textiles and—in improperly sealed landfills—into groundwater. Burning the items in incinerators can release those toxins into the air.
Synthetic fibers are even worse in terms of not breaking down easily, released pollutants, and also polluting our waterways as they are shedded (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfib...).
It seems the corrective trend in fashion is towards closed loop sourcing, where we are in effect wearing "second hand" clothes that have been remade from old fibers. Right now, it is expensive. But while we wait for technological advances, maybe we just need a shift in mindset - towards buying things that last longer, that degrade more easily, and that cost more (to accommodate recycling). It means we can afford less of other pleasures, but it might be the only way around the problem.
Yes, please!
The True Cost (2015) documentary trailer: https://youtu.be/OaGp5_Sfbss?t=31
If you want to find great second hand clothes, figure out when the shops put out new product and shop on those days.