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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that these days clothing is so cheap that there really isn't a lot of people who lack clothing anymore. Even in the poorest corners of the world, people have a few sets of clothing and maybe even shoes.

This is huge progress compared to the old days, when many people only had one set of clothes, and had to wash them naked.

If the price for this is a lot of clothing trash, that seems a pretty great bargain to me.

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That sounds like a false dilemma. Surely there are more options than just having one set of clothes or having enormous amounts of clothing waste.

In order for everyone to have clothes there needs to be an oversupply of clothes. It seems a shame to burn, but I don't know if warehousing makes sense or if there would be any benefit to just leaving them in the open.

> In order for everyone to have clothes there needs to be an oversupply of clothes

Not sure why that would be the case.

For example, consider if everyone had as much clothes as they need. Then only occasional replacements would suffice, which is a quantity significantly less the total amount required if each person lacked sufficient clothing.

Or consider some regulation: 97% of stock must remain on the shelves and sell before new stock is brought in. That will certainly put a break on fast fashion.

Also, define oversupply: +1%, 10%, 50%?

It's the same reason why there has to be an oversupply of water for everyone to have water. We don't have any way to teleport items to exactly where they need to be when they're needed. Our logistics isn't infinite, and neither is our knowledge of where everything is. With so many humans who need clothes (that is every single one of us), it's not that surprising for 50 tons of clothes to end up in a wrong place, wrong time kind of situation.

Clothes aren't totally fungible, after all. I think burning food is much worse. I know the big burning pile look bad there... but how big is it really? The article says between 11k - 59k tons. I'll go with the high end and assume 50k metric tonnes. Assuming 150 grams per item (weight of a tshirt) that's 6666 items per tonne, which is about 333 million items in the pile. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that much. I think 5% oversupply is probably a floor for clothes. Any less than that and we're looking at shortages at retail. Say 5 billion humans each own 50 kilograms of clothing, which is ridiculously low balling it, that's 250 billion tons. And I'm not even talking about our shoe supply here! It must take tens of millions of tonnes of production each year to sustain that, and it's not like it gets instantly teleported to the consumer.

If whoever owned that pile could get even 50 cents per piece for them, they probably would rather have taken the money. I think burning is probably wrong though, better it be dumped in pits and left there as is in case one day an economical way to use the material emerges in the future. I get the feeling to reduce waste, I really do, but I don't like your idea of regulation on this. It'll only deprive the poorer among us of access. I'm willing to accept some waste so that people on a tight budget can dress themselves with style and feel good.

oops, I meant "million tons" not "billion tons"!

> For example, consider if everyone had as much clothes as they need. Then only occasional replacements would suffice

The challenge is that clothes rapidly progress beyond "need" into "wants". Being "fashionable" is very roughly a human constant. One of the very very first things that we industrialized was textile and clothing production, and then we continued to keep facing fashion and clothing churn.

I think it would very challenging to regulate clothing into a strict need.

That's true, people do like their fashion.

But, again, it's not a choice between no fashion and ultra fast fashion (sell 10% of stock and throw away the rest). We can make clothes that are more durable, more customizable, we can have regulate how fast should fast fashion be, and, of course, regulate how waste should be treated.

Btw, I bet if you throw all that waste in a chemical reactor with a hydrogen source you can revert it back to hydrocarbons. I'm not a chemical engineer and I might be wrong, of course.

Truely yes, but I don't think it helps any more.

The problem with most of the fast fashion is that the clothes don't last very long, at only a handful of uses, so its only cheaper if you need lots of different outfits. If you are hanging on by a thread, then you need cheap outfits that last for as long as possible.

This claim is often repeated, but what I buy from H&M lasts years and years.

The claim about fast fashion not lasting long is not necessarily about quality or durability. It’s more that the business model is about chasing short-lived trends such that the clothes are thrown out by stores or consumers after a short time because the trends they were following passed.

Yep, and "fast fashion" originally meant quickly copying catwalk trends and getting them to consumers quickly. It's now somehow morphed into meaning clothes that are quickly thrown out but without anyone actually demonstrating that is actually happening.

> quickly copying catwalk trends and getting them to consumers quickly

That's not much morphing, the goal is to have clothes that are quickly obsoleted for people who can now immediately keep up with the trends. Those people can be a minority of their customers but buy far more by volume, don't wear clothes until they wear out, and need to dispose of out-of-date clothes. If they push enough consumers to fast fashion then there is a vast excess of used clothes that need to be thrown out.

Are you using them regularly in physical labor though?

I must say: things from H&M hm have regularly been holding up longer than other way more expensive brands. Sometimes they don’t really fit right anymore, but no holes or stitches that come loose.

So many years in my case that I'm really not sure that the counter would still hold.

What about Primark?

and I keep wearing my clothes despite the many holes they have, as long as no private bits poke out. I got laughed at by a female friend for it, so I pointed out her jeans have holes as a design choice. She did acknowledge the irony in that.

Is there a gender based point being made here? It feels like the only reason to mention she was a woman.

Yes. Females buy more clothes and the cultural stereotype is that they have a better clothing taste then men generally.

Also, let people tell stories however they feel like they want to tell them.

Thanks, that makes sense. It was indeed a point playing with a gender stereotype. I wonder if the woman GP was friends with would be accepted by society so readily if she put in so little effort to her clothes and appearance as he did. I doubt it, and that makes the remark a little bit uncomfortable to read honestly.

I'm not sure what your last remark is meant to imply but it feels quite rude. It's normal to be curious and ask people to expand on or clarify what they're saying, especially on a site where the main posting guidline is "intellectual curiosity." I don't appreciate your directive in this case, as I don't feel I was blocking anyone from sharing their story with the question I asked.

But, if we're being prescriptive, the term "women" is generally more accepted when talking about humans. "Females" is regarded by many as dehumanising.

> I wonder if the woman GP was friends with would be accepted by society so readily

I don’t think „society“ accepts an adult man who is dressed in rags either. At best people will think you’re some kind of hippie, at worst actively avoid you. In m experience does not apply if you are a student or below 30.

We weren't talking about rags, we were talking about worn clothing. The original comment seemed to suggest that the most pushback he experienced was the comment from his friend which the was able to shoot down. I'm sure that if he was being seriously shunned in the way you're suggesting he would have felt compelled to change his habits.

The expection for women to put more effort into their appearance than men is well understood. Do you disagree?

> and I keep wearing my clothes despite the many holes they have, as long as no private bits poke out.

These sound like rags to me.

The point is that the cross over point at which they become socially damaging is more liberal for men.

I meant that it is possible taskforcegemini looked like they were wearing rags in a “not having themselves together” way, whereas the friend’s clothing with intentional holes can look like a “have themselves together but wear it as a style choice” way.

It is or was very common to see men wearing clothing with tips and tears as a style choice, so I would not say men cannot get away with it. It just depends what the totality of the look is.

Ah, so basically she took on the labour of both her own and her friend's presentation, and he still managed to both belittle her for it and to feel bold enough to share the story putting her as the butt of a joke about "females."

That's a dubious claim and a faith-based argument.

Would you care to explain this assertion?

No evidence, just relies on a trope.

I just took a look at /newcomments and I counted fourteen assertions being made, none of which were evidenced and most of which relied on tropes relating to things like capitalism or working culture. This is the norm on this site, and as such I find it remarkable that you've singled out this particular instance of it.

There's an interesting topic for discussion in regards to measuring social phenomenon and it feels out of keeping with site guidelines that you wouldn't engage on that basis but rather begin with complete dismissal.

You need to find your own echo chamber if you dont like your tropes challenged. maybe daily kos?

I'm always happy to be challenged in my views. As I say above, there was no challenge from yourself, only dismissal.

Your comments have now become personal and derogatory and I am not willing to have a conversation like this at all, so I will do as you say and go away, or "shut the f up" as the other commenter said.

I'm not sure what gives you the right to tell me my views aren't welcome here. I've kept my comments within the site guidelines while you have not. Is this your personal echo chamber where others aren't welcome? The boys club where laughing about "females" goes ahead without comment? It must be that way since you targeted the single critical voice in a thread with at least 2 other examples of what you're ostensibly complaining about that you chose to ignore. You wouldn't even have the decency to respond to anything I said, again straight to dismissal and telling me to leave. So much for being challenged.

Depends on what they are. I don't buy most fashion things. Sure, I have a few nicer pieces of clothes for special events where I'm expected to dress up. But most of my stuff is budget/practical and lasts a long time. I have a winter coat over 20 years old and even my good suit is over 12 years old (re-tailored). Shoes tend to wear out the fastest since worn out insoles can lead to medical issues rather quickly. However, some shoes can be extended with replacement insoles.

Shoes last a long time, you can replace insoles.

It depends. I do replace insoles sometimes. It seems like many of the athletic shoes tend to have the fabric wear through or the tread wear off in about 1-2 years depending on the design and materials. Dress shoes tend to last a year or two longer for me, until the leather gets too bent up looking. Some of those designs have sewn and glued insoles which are not easy to replace.

You can't really replace outsoles though, and those also wear out fairly fast

Not in my experience. The current shoes I wear everyday are some random Nike runners (I don't use them for running), and I've worn them pretty much every day for about 3.5 years now without issues with the soles. I do around 15-20k steps per day for reference.

Yes you can, any cobbler should be able to do this. Personally I do it preemtively and have an extra sole fitted to the outside when I buy new shoes.

Except this usually costs around as much as a new pair. The flip side of economies of scale is that repair becomes uneconomical.

That's not true in my experience, but the point was more about environmrntalism. I don't need an entire pair of shoes' material to be sourced, prepared, transported etc. just because my soles are wearing down.

I often hear this argument but from my personal experience it is wrong. Doing a full repair of shoes cost me like 20-40€ (soles, insides, small holes) and lasts for 3+ years.

The problem is buying garbage in the first place.

"cost me like 20-40€"

Yes, in Europe this is no big deal. In the US there are very few shoe shops that will do this kind of work. When you find one, they typically charge a lot - $100+.

That's a problem in and of itself I think. We need to shift attitudes more towards repair, and as part of that we need skilled tradespeople who can repair stuff.

Before we can do any of that we would need to fix the race to the bottom mindset. Even with new materials and shipping, it's cheaper just mass produce in a third world country than to pay someone's labor to repair here. That's going to take changes to global trade and domestic income/pay.

The litmus test on this used to be those NFL Superbowl shirts for the losing team. To facilitate quick merchandising, they would print both teams as being the superbowl champions then whichever team one, sell that t-shirt. The losing teams 'champion' shirts would pop up in photos six months to a year down the road, being worn by children in third world countries. You don't see that anymore.

As someone fortunate enough to travel around the world, I have seen enough people without shoes and stuff we could barely call clothes.

The price is also environmental destruction on a grand scale. All that cotton has to be grown somewhere.

It’s not the bargain you think it is. These people pay a steep price to make our cheap stuff. They’re surrounded by plastic trash. And just like in the article, because there’s no waste management in these developing parts of the world, they just burn the trash to get rid of it.

In any event, having all these clothes is just a part of life that we’ve gotten used to. I’ve never heard anyone complain about a lack of clothes or shoes unless they were suddenly deprived of them.

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