Africa

Global trade in secondhand clothing has expanded dramatically over three decades, intensifying scrutiny over quality, classification, and waste leakage. As volumes rise, weak border controls risk shifting disposal burdens rather than extending garment lifetimes. A new regulatory framework proposes technical standards, sorting mandates, and traceability rules to align trade flows with circular outcomes.

Efforts to regulate global textile waste are reshaping debates over who defines sustainability and who bears its costs. A UNEP initiative to standardise “waste” classifications has triggered backlash from reuse economies, exposing how circularity policies can threaten livelihoods and distort trade while ignoring the real drivers of overproduction in wealthier manufacturing nations.

As the global textiles industry faces mounting scrutiny over waste, UNEP’s efforts to define what counts as “used” or “discarded” are sparking tension. Critics warn that new circularity rules risk undermining reuse economies in developing countries, threatening livelihoods and exposing how environmental ambition can collide with economic dependence.

Ethiopia’s cotton sector, once a pillar of African textile production, is being re-energised through renewed coordination between farmers, industry, and policymakers. At the centre of these efforts is Tsegaye Abebe, Executive Director of the Ethiopian Cotton Association (ECA), who outlines how the country can convert its vast but underutilised cotton potential into a sustainable and competitive national asset.

As Ethiopia’s artisan sector faces globalisation’s pressures, a new generation of designers is redefining what “handmade” means in a digitally connected and fast-changing world. Mekdes Mesfin, Founder and Creative Director of Demii Design, believes that craftsmanship and innovation can evolve together — sustaining livelihoods while shaping a modern national identity through design and empowering communities to see fashion as cultural continuity, not merely commerce.

The last piece in this five-part series on the twin subjects of the second-hand clothing in Africa and that of post-consumer textile waste in the content emphasises that the two are, of course, related, but not in the way that Western activists would like us to believe.

The Uganda Circular Textile project is designed to support a transition to a local textile manufacturing base by incorporating clothes that would otherwise end up in landfills into new products and design. Leading the project, which kicked off earlier this year, is WasteAid. Director of Programmes, Michelle Wilson, explains what it takes to navigate the second-hand clothing landscape in the country.

Less than a month ago, the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association (GUCDA) released a report which contended that media reports of waste were gross over-estimates. These reports and also the campaigns are being driven by flawed data, argues GUCDA General Secretary Edward Atobrah Binkley in this riveting interview with texfash.

One of the many African countries that has been repeatedly mentioned in the swathe of Western media reports about the impact of the second-hand clothing trade is Kenya. But the sector is huge in the country in its spread, and mitumba touches the lives of millions. Yet, the opinion of the Mitumba Consortium Association of Kenya (MCAK) has largely gone unheard. The Chairperson of the MCAK, Teresia Wairimu Njenga, tells texfash that much of what abounds is misinformation.

The unique opportunity presented by the availability of high-quality local fibres, the rich array of handwoven, hand-processed or industrial textiles produced on the continent, and the strength of the demand for African designs means that the sector is ripe for new investments and policies. Unless, the West reads “ripe for investment” as “ripe for plunder.”