Burn your old clothes, don't recycle them

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
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So watching the BBC News.

Apparently Ghana's land-fill sites are filling up with clothes from the UK given to charity shops, and they don't want them.

Correction: they only want your Gucci belts, and only if they're pristine.

They interviewed a Ghanaian chap who said they only want nice clothes, nothing faded, nothing with any wear in it, because they are running a business and only want stuff that sells well. M&S Luxury range is borderline OK, and definitely nothing from Primark or Top Man.

Quoted some celebrity who said, "We're just treating Ghana like a giant tip, sending them all our unwanted clothes. It's not fair."

So remember that next time you think about giving your slightly worn Gucci dressing gown to a charity shop. It better be good as new or they don't want it.

So I guess you better burn it instead?
 
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Not surprised
See groups of people in vans
At our supermarket clothes recycling
Point getting the bags of clothes
Off people then going through
The bags picking out the good stuff
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Not surprised
See groups of people in vans
At our supermarket clothes recycling
Point getting the bags of clothes
Off people then going through
The bags picking out the good stuff
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Chavtastic :)

b00merang69 said:
What happened to the old term "beggars cannot be choosers", that is why I do not do charity anymore.
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And think about the CO2 released transporting those unwanted clothes half way around the world.

It would literally be more environmentally friendly to burn them.
 
FoxEye said:
So watching the BBC News.

Apparently Ghana's land-fill sites are filling up with clothes from the UK given to charity shops, and they don't want them.

Correction: they only want your Gucci belts, and only if they're pristine.

They interviewed a Ghanaian chap who said they only want nice clothes, nothing faded, nothing with any wear in it, because they are running a business and only want stuff that sells well. M&S Luxury range is borderline OK, and definitely nothing from Primark or Top Man.

Quoted some celebrity who said, "We're just treating Ghana like a giant tip, sending them all our unwanted clothes. It's not fair."

So remember that next time you think about giving your slightly worn Gucci dressing gown to a charity shop. It better be good as new or they don't want it.

So I guess you better burn it instead?
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Why are they being sold?

As in if I give clothes to a recycle point or charity and they are sent to Ghana.

Why is someone picking out the good ones to sell and dumping the rest?

I think the issue isn't recycling but corruption within Ghana.

Of course he wants a supply of brand new designer gear. The more he gets the more money he makes.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Why are they being sold?

As in if I give clothes to a recycle point or charity and they are sent to Ghana.

Why is someone picking out the good ones to sell and dumping the rest?

I think the issue isn't recycling but corruption within Ghana.

Of course he wants a supply of brand new designer gear. The more he gets the more money he makes.
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I think it's telling that it's being dumped - as in, literally nobody wants it.

What does that tell you about Ghana's need for our 2nd hand clothing? They don't freaking need it. Why are we wasting time shipping it over to them?

Seems like we're still in the 80s where everybody in Africa was starving all the time.
 
FoxEye said:
I think it's telling that it's being dumped - as in, literally nobody wants it.

What does that tell you about Ghana's need for our 2nd hand clothing? They don't freaking need it. Why are we wasting time shipping it over to them?

Seems like we're still in the 80s where everybody in Africa was starving all the time.
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It's not if the person in charge of this is doing it for financial reasons.

You can pretty much guarantee that if you offered the clothes to the people living in slums for free they would take them.

It would be ignorant to think otherwise. Have you ever been to a country whose gdp is below 2000 dollars per capita?
 
Psycho Sonny said:
It's not if the person in charge of this is doing it for financial reasons.

You can pretty much guarantee that if you offered the clothes to the people living in slums for free they would take them.

It would be ignorant to think otherwise. Have you ever been to a country whose gdp is below 2000 dollars per capita?
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They showed an example landfill site where the clothes are being dumped.

It's very much seemed accessible to anyone, and they were interviewing an environmental campaigner as they (and the reporter) rummaged through.

There were clothes fully intact - M&S, Nike, yadda, yadda.

You're telling me desperate people can't get hold of this stuff?

The message was (from the BBC report) that Ghana is completely overwhelmed and saturated with our 2nd hand clothes and they don't know what to do with it.

If you want to call anyone ignorant maybe check your facts first.

e: The seller were the locals who had picked out the best bits coming from the charity shops, and were trying to sell them on for a couple dollars a garment. And then complaining it won't sell, and they need better quality stuff from the charities to make any money.
 
Are people still surprised about the corruption In Africa. If you’re donating anything to these places be it clothes or money you may as well burn it as the OP said as it’ll end up in the wrong hands.
 
FoxEye said:
They showed an example landfill site where the clothes are being dumped.

It's very much seemed accessible to anyone, and they were interviewing an environmental campaigner as they (and the reporter) rummaged through.

There were clothes fully intact - M&S, Nike, yadda, yadda.

You're telling me desperate people can't get hold of this stuff?

The message was (from the BBC report) that Ghana is completely overwhelmed and saturated with our 2nd hand clothes and they don't know what to do with it.

If you want to call anyone ignorant maybe check your facts first.
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Like I said before have you ever been to a country with a gdp below 2000 dollars per capita?

The people in the slums won't be able to get to the site unless it's on their doorstep.

They earn less than a dollar per day. If the landfill site is 30+ miles away from their home then how will they get to it?

Also how would they even know that stuff is being dumped there? They won't have TV's or mobile phones, etc, many likely won't be able to read or write either.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Like I said before have you ever been to a country with a gdp below 2000 dollars per capita?
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Logically if they are getting clothing handed to them for free then their GDP per capita has no bearing whatsoever on their ability to procure clothing.

Unless you believe that the charities are taking all the clothing to one particular place in Ghana and just dumping it. Could be, I guess, if they are truly incompetent or dealing with a very corrupt distribution chain. But I somehow doubt their distribution is that inept.

In either case there is still no reason whatsoever to keep giving our clothing to charity shops.

Either it's unwanted or it's unable to get to the people who need it.

Either way it's useless to keep giving to to charity shops and also less environmentally friendly than burning it, when you consider the CO2 used to ship it around the world to Ghana. Which - according to the BBC - is where much of our clothing ends up. In landfill.

peterwalkley said:
I'm a tight arse. Clothes get worn until they are falling apart and then binned. Is this not what all blokes do then ?
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Same here. And then old t-shirts become rags to polish shoes with or wipe the floor, or whatever :p

But apparently in the UK we buy more clothing each year than any other EU nation. We have this whole "disposable fashion" thing going on, where you have to throw away your clothes at about the 3 month old mark.

It's one of the way the UK has lost its collective mind.
 
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FoxEye said:
Logically if they are getting clothing handed to them for free then their GDP per capita has no bearing whatsoever on their ability to procure clothing.

Unless you believe that the charities are taking all the clothing to one particular place in Ghana and just dumping it. Could be, I guess, if they are truly incompetent or dealing with a very corrupt distribution chain. But I somehow doubt their distribution is that inept.

In either case there is still no reason whatsoever to keep giving our clothing to charity shops.

Either it's unwanted or it's unable to get to the people who need it.

Either way it's useless to keep giving to to charity shops and also less environmentally friendly than burning it, when you consider the CO2 used to ship it around the world to Ghana. Which - according to the BBC - is where much of our clothing ends up. In landfill.
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So you have never been therefore haven't seen how things work first hand.

Well I have and yes they are extremely corrupt anyone in power abuses it for money.

As soon as I got off the plane security wanted a bribe to let me through with my duty free alcohol. They said I had too much and could only take half out the airport with me. Unless I gave them the equivalent of £2.

My uncle that had come to pick us up in a chauffeured car was on the way back pulled to the side on a checkpoint by local cops. He had to show them a receipt which he had to pay them for earlier the equivalent of 50p to gain access to the city. Again a bribe to get past them.

On the way back home security stops all people without tickets from access to the airport unless you pay them something.

The guy who I bought fresh fish from a street vendor sees a cop approaching and he immediately took his fresh fish and put it underneath and old stuff on the counter. This is because the cop gets it for free as a bribe and he gets to keep his stall open.

A friend wants to get a shotgun license so he takes another one of my uncles who is a politician within the country to the place where you apply. Reason being with him there he only needs to pay the application fee. Had he not brought him they would want a lot more to process his application.

You want to do anything in these countries you have to grease the wheels of anyone who has power.
 
None of that makes giving your old clothes to a charity shop a better thing to do than burning it.

All that does is highlight how bent most of that continent is.

And yes I'm well aware of the corruption. I can read. As I'm sure are the charities themselves. I'm sure they are capable of operating within the system.

You still must assume extreme levels of incompetence on their part to assume that the clothing cannot be reaching the people who "need" it - if such a need exists.

The alternative is that the BBC are correct and we've literally saturated Ghana with more clothing than they have a clue what to do with.

But either way giving our clothes to the charity shops is a waste of time - where the charities are not seeking to redistribute it in this country but instead ship it off to Ghana.
 
FoxEye said:
None of that makes giving your old clothes to a charity shop a better thing to do than burning it.

All that does is highlight how bent most of that continent is.

And yes I'm well aware of the corruption. I can read. As I'm sure are the charities themselves. I'm sure they are capable of operating within the system.

You still must assume extreme levels of incompetence on their part to assume that the clothing cannot be reaching the people who "need" it - if such a need exists.

The alternative is that the BBC are correct and we've literally saturated Ghana with more clothing than they have a clue what to do with.

But either way giving our clothes to the charity shops is a waste of time - where the charities are not seeking to redistribute it in this country but instead ship it off to Ghana.
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If these charities are so well run shouldn't they know everything they are sending is ending up in landfill?
 
TonTom said:
Are people still surprised about the corruption In Africa. If you’re donating anything to these places be it clothes or money you may as well burn it as the OP said as it’ll end up in the wrong hands.
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Not really, no. It's not just governmental corruption either, it's how they are. From five years ago.

Malevolence said:
It's sub-Saharan Africa. A friend of mine spent some time in Niger as part of his University degree. He and the company he was with set up a solar power system that powered water pumps & purifiers, charged phones, radios and torches and allowed other such simple devices to be used in villages that were literally in the middle of nowhere.

Two weeks later when they went to check how they were working out and to fix any problems that had arisen they found every one had been stripped down to it's components and either sold on or used as building materials or farming implements.

It's just how it is in that part of the World.
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Don't a lot of clothes also go through Eastern Europe and get hand picked there. I thought it was why many people from they region seem to wear clothes that we were wearing 15 years ago.
 
Well i don't feel so bad now... But, how do we know they aren't just going to the places like Lagos, dumping it and wondering why people 50-100 miles out aren't getting any of it?

Also, it's probably just the fact that we're going through clothes so quickly that it's just a literal unusable mountain of trash, there's obviously a hard limit on how many clothes people need in these places.

It's our problem realistically, reusing old/used clothes needs to be culturally accepted regardless of the loss of jobs it would entail, we'd have more money to spend on other things anyway, so it's hardly a big loss.
 
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