Stop dumping your cast-offs on us, Ghanaian clothes traders tell EU
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
They can't manufacturer them after the fact, so they make both and ship the loser's winner's jerseys of to an alternative reality in Africa.
Also, it was about 2 in the morning when I left the comment, and my brain's a little melty.
And then they give out the appropriate shirts on launch day and donate the others to some vaguely appropriate charity.
They're not only purchasing, but they've built an entire local industry around it. "Dumping" and "killing of an extremely precious local industry" are not in this article, on the contrary.
Even "industrialized" clothing relies on humans to do most of the joining work so the pricing advantage isn't as big if we actually cracked down on labor exploitation. We won't but a girl can dream, right?
i.e. USA buys a bunch of USA rice and gives it to X country for free which means X countries' farmers cannot actually sell their rice and it hampers economic recovery.
> 70% ends up in ditches and drains, leaching dyes into the sea and rivers, and covering beaches with vast tangles of clothing.
This is prime example of something that sounds more issue with local environmental regulations and their enforcement. And if the problem is corruption then just adding more money in the mix doesn't exactly sound like a solution
After environmental dumping, you are now a country with n + 1 problems.
Is it unfair to say to upstream "please stop"?
Edit:
(Or as it turns out, please pay more to handle this trash for you, it's getting out of hand here.)
Is anyone currently forcing Ghana to accept these textiles?
If they really want to stop textile waste importing then why wouldn't they start with local legislation first? You don't need EU regulations to do import control
I'd understand if they'd ask for EUs help for stopping illegal imports or something to that effect, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
No, and the super-importers bringing it all in are making a killing off of it.
> If they really want to stop textile waste importing then why wouldn't they start with local legislation first? You don't need EU regulations to do import control
Because the government of Ghana is currently incapable of or unwilling to handle it. My guess is there's enough money flowing from the people at the top towards the government to stop it, but that's a guess based off of a general distrust of politicians.
I do, however, think it's fair to say that if we know that selling this stuff to Ghana is harming the everyday person there and that they are not capable of putting a stop to it - and the everyday person obviously is not - then there is a moral responsibility to not do it.
I don't know that increasing the cost is going to do much to stop it, though - this largely just puts more money in the pockets of the people that have already shown they don't care about properly disposing of the portion of clothing that doesn't end up in the secondhand market. Assigning some small portion of that to the government or funding for cleanup won't change that. Placing requirements that make sure that it is only sold to importers that can make sure the waste portion is actually disposed of in a way that is ecologically friendly seems like a better solution. Obviously this would increase the price as well, but the primary goal of "Not ruining the local ecology and harming the people that have to live near it all" is going to be better served.
If you want to regulate international trade along a sense of ‶moral responsibility″, you will hit a lot of walls; the main one being ‶whose definition of moral responsibility?″, and the second one being ‶geez, virtually no country actually fills my definition of morally responsible trade″.
Because if you cut out Ghana, good luck cutting out the whole of Africa, probably most of South America, quite a lot of EU countries, Russia, China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, ...
That in broad strokes aligns with my feelings too, that is why I'm so critical of this sort of special case regulatory fees no matter how well intentioned.
It's vastly cheaper for the government to ask other governments to stop exporting clothing waste to Ghanaian waste processing companies. Literally a phone call or three. As soon as they're not funding this, or they're only funding approved waste processing, the problem vanishes.
They want to keep getting the clothes.
Which they are buying, not having dumped on them.
Only they want the EU to pay them to buy them.
And that's why they're asking the EU, instead of their own government.
I swear the Guardian gets worse every day.
Here's the quotes the commenter refers to:
> The traders from Kantamanto in Accra [...] argue that proposed extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation should ensure Ghana receives funds towards managing the 100 tonnes of clothing discarded at the market every day.
> Critics say the policy does little for “end-of-line” countries such as Ghana – because the fee paid by clothing producers is low at just €0.06 (5p) for each item, and the funds raised do not “follow exports” to countries such as Ghana, which are suffering the consequences of over-production and consumption in wealthy countries.
> The Kantamanto traders want the draft EPR policy – due to be submitted in June – to increase the fee to a minimum of €0.50 cents for each item, and to guarantee a fair portion of the money goes to the countries where the secondhand clothes end up, including at least 10% towards an environmental fund to clean up previous damage.
There is not a normal relationship between Africa and the world. There’s an abusive one aided by imperialist colonialist powers “trading” with them.
Should you feel this way about your country, then mention it explicitly and keep me and mine out of your group of Evil Global North.
> Why is any of this happening at all?
The answer to your question is in the article. This is happening because African businesses are buying deadstock and recycled clothes, and they've built an entire local economy based on these purchases.
Why is there so much clothing garbage? Fast Fashion. Fun fact: 90% of the clothing donations go to these African dumps [0]. As such this will continue until Africa bans clothes disposal entirely just like China banned electronic waste, or the West regulates Fast Fashion.
Alternatively, we could just ban the export. But since that is the opposite of what the people in the article want, it might not be what they want...
It's like saying businesses shouldn't pay to dispose of e-waste because r/homelab exists to buy on a secondary market.
The African traders are selling disposal services. You are somehow hung up that this garbage has value by the simple fact that people pick through it and make markets after disposal. Again, the West can simply stop paying for foreign disposal service and dump it domestically. Either way, its garbage to the exporter and no tiny Marginal Utility squeezed at the end is going to change those dynamics.
But that is fine.
If the government of Ghana wants to ban or regulate this process they should. That is not the EU's issue. As it is, they seem happy with the current setup.
This is an awful analogy because something like r/homelab is a tiny and insignificant fraction of a market for things like e-waste. This is not the case in Ghana, where about 40% of the clothing is immediately trashed and the other 60% is at least attempted to be sold.
https://deadwhitemansclothes.org/intro provides a pretty solid introduction to the whole situation.
>Super importers/European exporters work with local Ghanaian importers to move shipping containers full of bales into the center of Accra, along Ghana’s southern coast. Local importers work with middlemen/women to market individual bales. Kayayei (singular Kayayo), or head porters who are mostly women from the north of Ghana, move bales to retailers and storage managers. Retailers often work with tailors to alter garments to fit consumer demands. The consumer buys products for herself, or for resale amongst friends, family and a growing web of social media connections. What is leftover is picked up by waste managers or sent to rebalers who package items to be put back on trucks to ship to neighboring countries where the process starts all over. In some cases a local not-for-profit group might pick up some clothes from the market to distribute to clients for free. Most clothes end up in this system after the initial manufacture, sale and first life, when they are donated to a not-for-profit or a licensee of a not-for-profit in the Global North.
The idea that this is bought solely as waste and the market is made up of people picking over things in a landfill simply isn't correct. It's a sophisticated market with multiple tiers and most of it built around the idea of selling the clothes second hand. It does ultimately generate a significant amount of waste, and people do then go pick through that waste to try and find things missed by all these other tiers, but that's a far cry from this being the same as being just a disposal service.
This isn't to say a lot of your core point isn't correct - this is still an unsustainable solution, it still harms a lot of everyday people, etc. There is almost certainly a moral responsibility for the rest of the world to do things differently here, because for whatever reason, be it corruption or lack of funding or insert whatever other reason you would like, the government of Ghana is not regulating business in a way that is best for the people in their country, and we shouldn't perpetrate harm on people just because their governments can't do a good enough job.
But the fundamental point this thread has been about is that the article goes out of it's way to avoid discussing the details of the situation - it makes it sound like all of this disposal money is paid to someone, somewhere, totally unrelated, and the clothing just magically appears in Ghana. That's not the case. This is business, through and through, and the businesses buying all of this in bulk could 100% stop buying it at this price. They could 100% refuse to take it unless higher prices were paid that could allow them to properly dispose of it. But they don't, and the government of Ghana isn't forcing them to. The story would be stronger if it explained the actual situation there, instead of leaving out some of the most important context around understanding what is actually occurring.
I'm sorry, you are correct. I got wrapped up in the metaphor and forgot the point.
I think we fundamentally agree. At the core we have commodities whose market value is driven aggressively below the cost to bring it back into the market. The forces causing this are legion and (unfortunately) economically rational in broad strokes. The "disposal" acts like a subsidy that inflates the market value enough to bring those costs back into profitability, or at least cover the final disposal cost. Take everything above to its logical conclusion, the customer pays for disposing unsold inventory via margins and the citizen pays to donate via taxes. Even this price is pushed down by corruption at the expense of people in Africa and fuels all the behavior above.
In all of our defenses, we're here deep in the weeds on HN precisely because this outcome is madness!
They're not only purchasing, but they've built an entire local industry around it. This is not "EU member states paying African countries to take in rubbish", this is African businesses buying deadstock and recycled clothing and making a living out of them.
And just because some barely scrape by by sorting garbage doesn't make it valuable or value building industry. What a local manufacturing economy could be. When sufficient quality locally is reached they could start exporting that stuff.
No one in the west reads anything but the most sensationalist bullshit so you can't blame reporters for writing it.
The real story is just never interesting enough.
To think any country wants to not follow America’s path to success is what is surprising. America is built off protectionism yet African countries shouldn’t behave the same way? Even worse the Global North pushes almost all other countries not to be imperialist or protectionist. Instead they should be exploited or “helped” by the Global North on the Global North terms.
Don’t forget, the Global North will warn Africa to not trust China with a serious face.
Let's solve some problems. How about the Global North wipe off all debts to colonized countries? That would solve problems that are directly in control of the powerful entities of the west.
Do you think this is one possible good solution? If not, what are you and others doing that is helpful for actually solving problems?
--
I wasn't aware Global North is academic jargon. What is your background in understanding the nuances of politics, geopolitics, imperialism, colonialism, history, and various intersectionality since the New World was discovered? I'm new to taking all of this seriously. I've been studying for 20+ hours for 2+ years now. I'm surprised I was able to make such a mistake. Thanks for your help in understanding I should use the correct colloquial terms. What are they?
For the most famous examples: Lumumba and Sankara were murdered for bettering their country in ways like what is being quoted.
Buying more expensive is far from a guarantee that you'll get quality. You have to be willing to spend more, but you also need to research the market, listen to tips from everywhere, be willing to experiment, and sometimes have dumb luck. Finding quality eats time and is not always doable.
And sometimes better is also cheaper. You might be able to buy last year's top model in a clearance, or get second hand stuff that stood the test of time and is nearly indestructable.
The amounts are too large for anything else.
The main downside is having to absolutely soak everything in fire retardant.
R302.10.3 Cellulose loose-fill insulation. Cellulose loose-fill insulation shall comply with CPSC 16 CFR, Parts 1209 and 1404. Each package of such insulating material shall be clearly labeled in accordance with CPSC 16 CFR, Parts 1209 and 1404.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1209.3 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/part-1404
Save the ocean! Don’t recycle! (unless you know your area has a local plant)