most of clothes The one who is forgiven has no “second life”To demonstrate this, geolocators were placed on 29 garments stored in municipal containers and Zara and Mango stores that have traveled or will travel thousands of kilometers with an uncertain future, according to environmental organization Greenpeace.
Thus, after four months of follow-up It was possible to confirm that only one of the garments was reusedAccording to Greenpeace, it was purchased from a second-hand store in Romania. This organization, which coincides with Black Friday celebrations where brands encourage large purchases with aggressive discounts, aims to reveal the problem of overproduction of clothing and shoes.
between the rest of the clothesSome of it continues to move and does not seem to have reached its final destination, despite having traveled thousands of kilometers to places like Chile, Pakistan, India or Togo; and others are in warehouses in industrial areas in Spain or simply “still not giving signals.”
Monitoring from 11 provinces
Location devices were placed on clothing (clothes and shoes) suitable for a second life in July and August.They then stored them in containers in 11 provinces of Spain, both on public roads and in Zara and Mango stores that collaborate with organizations such as Cáritas.
The first big surprise, according to Greenpeace, was to “discover” that the governing bodies were the same in both cases; Greenpeace stated that they found clothing from two systems in the United Arab Emirates, which has reception centers along with Pakistan. International clothing stores located in free zones to facilitate their re-export.
Other garments have been found in Africa, particularly in Egypt, Togo and Morocco, the environmental organization said. According to the European Environment Agency,46% of used textile products exported from the European Union go to an African country, 60% are resold, and the remaining 40% are thrown away. many times directly into the environment.
Nearly half of the flagged garments have not yet left Spain despite having moved one or more times, Greenpeace said, explaining that this was because four months was insufficient to fully track them to their destination. can be followed on the environmental organization’s website.
According to the same source, during the development of the study they also found that: Existence of a “disordered cycle” in textile waste management those who evade the management mandated by municipal councils with responsibility for selective waste collection.
We must change the system
The research reveals that: The need to radically change the clothing production and consumption model In its statement, Greenpeace argued that it is necessary to avoid falling into wrong solutions or patches that will delay this change.
The effective management of used clothing so that it does not represent a growing environmental and social problem must be accompanied by a drastic reduction in production and an increase in the durability and quality of clothing, which clothing brands will be obliged to do from 2025. he warned.
Mango and Inditex (Zara) attract attention
After the report was published, Mango and Inditex announced that they have containers in their stores so that users can leave their clothes in these containers. Collaboration with non-profit organizations that sort them by reuse, recycling or cogeneration electricity depending on the situation.
“Textile waste collected in containers is mostly reused, a small part remains in Spain as second-hand, and the rest is exported.”always be pre-sorted for reuse or recycling, “As will be established by future European regulation which will not allow the export of unsorted textile waste,” Mango explained.
Inditex, the group to which Zara belongs, stated: Agreements with these organizations include express prohibitions on diverting clothing to landfills and certain export markets. due to the risk of negative impacts on these communities.
“Over 60% of total clothing is reusedeither by donating it to people in need or by reselling it to finance social projects,” assured the world’s largest textile group.