5.8% of total waste generated by the U.S. is made up of textile and fabric material waste. This seemingly small percentage of waste actually makes up 11,300 US tons of waste (see Figure 1). The amount of textile waste has increased by 179% since 2000 alone. As one can imagine, this is causing an enormous waste issue.
Figure 1. Exponential growth of textile waste in the U.S. from 1960-2018.
What is causing the increase in textile waste and mismanagement of merchandise?
To start off the conversation about Waste Colonialism, we will bring in the woman who advocates and puts feet on the ground to understand the situation, Liz Ricketts.
As the Director of The OR Foundation, fashion educator, designer, researcher, and advocate, Ricketts invests in learning more about waste consumption and sustainability beyond the US markets. She looks for ways to accomplish circular product development. Rickett’s work is based at the Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana, which she explains has the world's largest clothing waste market. There are complex networks of distributors, seamstresses, cobblers, and sales-people. 15 million pieces of clothing arrive at this market each week.
Kantamanto is the real life example of what encapsulates waste colonialism.
“This isn't just an environmental crisis, it’s a financial crisis for everyone who works in Kantamanto. Because the clothing is so much, and so low quality, people simply cannot get their money back out and basically are operating in a debt cycle." Liz Ricketts, sustainable fashion campaigner from the United States, living in Ghana.
Firstly, consumerism is a way of thinking that is so embedded into our society and encourages the overconsumption of products, leading to an overall devaluation of clothing. The industry that fuels consumption is the backbone of the overproduction issue. For example, large fashion companies may produce over the actual predicted amount of clothing for a season, resulting in dead stock products. Dead stock is essentially wasted clothing. Ricketts explains that companies produce 20-40% more product than is in demand. The imbalance of supply and demand brings us to the problem of excess waste.
Now, the people in charge are left with the responsibility of how to handle the remaining merchandise, fabric, defected pieces, etc. One way that Ricketts and other activists urge corporations to be more sustainable is by shifting towards repurposing and redesigning practices. The issue has solutions, however the industry is rooted in negligence and disillusion. The issue of recycling/ reusing material is not the lack of technology. 95% of waste textile material has the potential to be repurposed, but at this time only 15% of the materials are being recycled.
Capitalism has influenced our perceptions of clothing, cost, and utility. Ricketts explains the gap between the Global North and the Global South are vastly different. The U.S. encourages the culture of everything being disposable, as we see with fast fashion tendencies. Efficiency and profitability are at the center of consumer culture. In contrast, those in the Global South view clothing and products as long-lasting, useful, and valuable objects.
Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East are exploited for raw resources and unjust labor practices. On top of the exploitation, these groups are left with vast amounts of waste that are discarded and forgotten. The Global North has urged these countries left with the waste to incorporate incineration, pyrolysis and other harmful waste burning technologies, which is not the solution. There is no responsibility taken by the fashion industry or the U.S. government due to the waste crisis, and corporate branding continues to greenwash labels encouraging a continuation of mass consumption. The disadvantage caused by waste colonialism is evident and advocates are bringing to light the extremity of the situation that stems from the U.S. as a modern form of waste colonialism.
Sources:
Podcast: “Waste Colonialism and Dead White Man’s Clothes with Liz Ricketts” presented by WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press
https://www.centerforecotechnology.org/fast-fashion-textile-waste/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-liz-ricketts-36a1b926/
Vocabulary explained by Liz Ricketts:
Consumers: our society centers consumerism. Consume is misleading in the fashion world because it is defined as using up an object. However “we” the Global North in the upper/middle class are underutilizing our clothing. People wear clothing 7 times, and only use 20% of our wardrobe. Wasting of money, waste of finite resources, and waste of labor.
Dead stock: the “leftover” clothing and products, oversupply, waste, on average large companies over produce by 20-40%, the demand is difficult to estimate
Feedstock: raw resources, “nutrients that go into what we consume”, cotton and oil are under government subsidies, which leads to an undervalue of resources.
Dead white man’s clothes: street term used in Ghana, excess is not an indigenous concept, but instead it is something that is taught to all of us in the Global North, the consumers, assuming that the nice clothing is from a dead person. Nice products that are discarded.
Waste colonialism: the export of excess hazardous waste and pollution by the container from the Global North to the Global South.
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