Somehow this eradication of third world poverty is bad. Because everything is bad if you want to think of it that way.
Just one point: Clothing ending up in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration.
And this is not even remotely close to "eradication of third world poverty." Rich countries are doing this to avoid filling their own landfills. That there are side benefits for some is good, but it's hardly transformative, especially at the volumes described.
And yes, it's sequestration compared to burning them. But the production of these garments at enormous volumes is wasteful and toxic. The culture of waste and disposability, and treating poor countries as sovereign landfills that should be grateful for our luxury garbage, are serious problems.
And, indeed, before the '50's, many Americans had a couple of changes of clothing for the week plus their Sunday clothes. So even we're not that far removed from that time.
It is quite possibly carbon negative in the big picture because it prevents some oil from being burned for power and some oil from being burned for transport and doesn't waste human effort with sorting garbage several times which ends up in a landfill anyway not so unlikely polluting the planet with plenty of microplastics along the way.
By that logic, so is the insane amount of waste that's currently in the ocean instead of having been burnt. The forests and grasslands that were cut down for those landfills would've sequestered much more carbon in the long term. Plastics can take anywhere between 50 and millions of years to decompose and they decompose into what? Microplastics? Other chemicals that hardly any lifeform is capable of utilizing?
One thing you quickly observe about Americans after spending enough time on HN is how quickly they'll jump to justify massive amounts of waste with some vague reference somehow tying it to decreasing poverty. Last winter, Lufthansa airlines had 18,000 empty flights just to maintain their airport spots. In 2015 the EU mistakenly classified wood pellets as a renewable energy source. Since then, US exports of wood pellets have tripled, the EU's "renewable energy" makeup has gone from less than 20% biomass to ~60% biomass in 2020.
Waste exists. I don't understand the compulsion people have to somehow bring poverty into the conversation every time someone tries to point it out
No. Clothing ending up in landfill produces methane.
Yes. We're using the poorest parts of Africa as garbage dump. We're not helping these people prosper, quite the contrary; we're destroying local economies.
The clothing can't both be unwanted and outcompete local manufacturers.
Of course it can. You can have a vast mountain of worthless fabric that's not wanted by anyone and still have enough usable and useful pieces of clothing besides that to destroy any local manufacturing.