What happens to the used clothes we return to stores to be recycled? It will probably end here

In a report that coincides with Black Friday, Greenpeace warns that the consumption of fast fashion is “an environmental time bomb”: 80% of used clothing collected in the European Union is exported to other countries, where at least 40% of the pieces end up in landfills or fires

More and more clothing stores are offering to collect the items we no longer want and send them for recycling. The idea is good, but are we really sure that those pieces will have a “second life”? To find out what happens to used clothes after taking them to the container for “recycling”, in 2023 Greenpeace decided to place tracking devices on 29 pieces of clothing that were placed in containers in different cities and which, soon, began circulating around the world. In the end, it was only possible to determine the reuse of one of the 29 items of clothing monitored, which was purchased in a thrift store in Romania. Months later, many pieces of clothing continued to move, traveling thousands of kilometers to places as distant and diverse as Chile, Pakistan, India or Togo.

They weren’t surprising. With this project, “we confirmed something we already imagined: our used clothes rarely have a second life. The volume is so large that it represents a growing environmental and social problem”, says Greenpeace, which is taking advantage of another Black Friday to tackle this global problem .

These, with containers installed in their stores, are, for now, voluntary, but in 2025 they will become mandatory in all textile companies. But Greenpeace has doubts about its effectiveness. “The circular economy is not compatible with the uncontrolled production and consumption model we have. At this moment, the production and acquisition of clothing is far above what the system is capable of managing with recycling and what the planet can assume as a volume of waste”, explains Sara del Río, research coordinator at Greenpeace, in an interview The European Confederation of Recycling Industries has already warned that textile reuse and recycling is on the brink of collapse across Europe.

One from the European Environment Agency (EEA) from 2024, using data from 2020, concluded that in that year the European Union generated 6.95 million tons of textile waste, around 16 kg per person. Of these, only 4.4 kg (domestic and industrial) were collected separately for potential reuse and recycling. 11.6 kg went directly to the .

Over the past two decades, exports of used clothing from the European Union have tripled: from 550,000 tonnes in 2000 to almost 1.7 million in 2019, the NGO says in another. It is estimated that 80% of textile waste selectively collected in Member States is destined for export outside the EU: around 46% ends up in Africa and 41% in Asia.

However, their final fate is uncertain and the idea that leaving our clothes in a container allows them “a second life” and helps people in need usually does not correspond to reality, says the agency. The truth is that 40% of used clothing exported to countries in the Global South ends up in landfills or burned.

In 2022, the Greenpeace report “” documented the impact of textile waste disguised as second-hand clothing exported to East Africa. For example, in Kenya, according to Afrika Collect Textiles and other local sources, 30-40% of the used clothes they receive are of poor quality. These are clothes that can no longer be sold and become textile waste that often ends up in landfills without receiving adequate treatment.

A high percentage of the fibers used in clothing are synthetic (mainly polyester) and, therefore, we talk about plastic waste. On the one hand, the manufacture of these petroleum-derived materials involves the use of chemical substances, which are often dangerous. On the other hand, these materials take decades to degrade and, when they are burned, they emit toxic substances into the atmosphere. It is “an environmental time bomb”, says Greenpeace.

Greenpeace Africa also carried out an investigation into the situation in Ghana, one of the countries that receives the most textile waste, and concluded that, as there is no infrastructure to dispose of these huge amounts of textile waste and official landfills are full, the waste is dumped in anywhere, states the report titled “”, released in September. Sometimes they are dumped along rivers or near cities, used as fuel or simply burned in the open air. The dangers to the health of the population are enormous. In short: we produce too much clothing and create a problem that, to a large extent, is paid for by the most vulnerable people and the planet, concludes Greenpeace.

With new legislation coming into effect next year, it is likely that more companies and municipalities will install containers to collect used clothing. Greenpeace insists that this law focuses on “the last link in the chain” and not on the mode of production, which is at the root of the problem, and considers that this system “perpetuates the neocolonialist mentality that is the basis of this model promoted by fashion brands and his evasion of responsibilities”.

“Much more drastic legislative changes are needed,” says Sara del Río. “If a company is fully responsible for the impact generated by its waste, it also has to be responsible for ensuring that it does not end up in an African country, burned or in a landfill, and therefore has to focus on manufacturing less and less clothing. higher quality.”