I saw somewhere that people can drop off clothes anonymously. That means you don't have much data about demographics? I ask because I am keen to know whether there are particular demographic groups that have a higher affinity to both discard clothes as well as buy products? Is it higher among the young? Or middle classes?
We collect mostly from the middle and upper classes. Up to 70% of what we collect is women’s clothing. That is probably because women care more about climate change and sooner take the effort to bring items to our collection bins, but possibly also because they buy or need more clothing. In our communications, we do target the younger age groups, because we feel in the long run that will have the most impact. Older minds are more challenging to change or inspire.
A common remark we hear why our model would not work is because people forward their clothes to relatives or staff members. But we also know passing on clothes to others can become rather awkward; why do you give me your old clothes? Am I not good enough for a new present? Next to that, it is believed that people can do harm to the original owner through their garments, and they would rather not take that risk. Forwarding clothes anonymously would avoid any possible problem you might think of. We just make it easy; forward your used items to ACT and we make sure it will get a worthy second life. It is our specialty!
There was a time when most discussions about the African garment market were about SHC (secondhand clothing). Do you think the narrative / perspective has changed in recent times? As far as I know the SHC market in Kenya is still very big.
We expected that Kenya would ban foreign mitumba one day, just like Rwanda did. By now, we also learned that that is easier said than done. Many people need access to affordable clothing. Kenya imports around 200 million kilos of foreign mitumba and that is a lot of volume to replace with locally sourced mitumba. [Mitumba is a Swahili term, literally meaning "bundles", used to refer to plastic-wrapped packages of used clothing donated by people in wealthy countries. The term is also applied to the clothing that arrives in these bundles.]
Another risk is that Kenya imports more fast fashion, which is in most cases less durable than foreign mitumba and in the long run more expensive for the consumer. Fast fashion items are more polluting and more difficult to recycle than slow fashion items, because it generally contains more plastics and are less pure.
We do not expect that foreign mitumba will decrease much, but we do think that importers should be held responsible for the waste this sector creates. People cannot ship in millions of kilos of (used) textiles and look away when they end up in rivers. We believe it is time to add a waste tax on imported items and the funds should be invested in high-end collection and recycling infrastructure.
Africa is huge and all African countries have a rich cultural heritage, including Kenya very much. And rich cultural heritage also means a whole range of traditional textiles and garments. Is there any way that ACT can help? Traditional textiles are dying everywhere.
This is a good question! The collected materials as well as the traditional techniques that are available, determine the design of our products. So, in a way our model can preserve traditional crafts.
For example, hand weaving is traditionally a Kenyan skill, and we make use of that. We only replace sheep wool with our collected denim. It has been said that by giving a traditional craft a modern twist, we keep it alive.
We are currently rolling out our model in Lagos, Nigeria and we can already see the materials we collect are different. For example, we collect more kitenge (African fabric), and, due to their use of event-specific garments, the quality of the fabrics is very high. Climate and culture determine what ACT collects. In Nigeria we do not weave denim into carpets, but we produce very colourful and airy sandals.
Are you still based wholly in Nairobi? Or have you started operating from Diani and Nakuru? What are the prospects in smaller towns compared to Nairobi? Also, when is your Nigeria plan going to unfold?
Last year, we started in Lagos, Nigeria as well. But in Kenya, besides Nairobi, where our HQ is located, we have installed a collection point in Diani. Collecting outside Nairobi will drastically increase the transportation costs. We still want to sort items in one place, because the larger the volumes of a specific waste stream, the sooner we can process it into new products.
There is in general not much leeway when it comes to such models; so, we need to collect good quality items and materials, while keeping the transport costs to a minimum. In the future, we hope to partner with organisations that supply themselves in Nakuru and drive back to Nairobi with empty. We could fill up the truck with collected items from Nakuru and save on transportation costs. This could make it more feasible to branch out to other cities.
Please tell us more about M25.
First, we try to monetise collected textiles and we pay our collection partners 10 Ksh per kilo. For our partners, textile collection becomes a fund-raising activity for their own charities. For example, Strathmore University fills up their student kitty by collecting used clothes and ACT supports Colobus Conservation in Diani. Some collection partners do not have a charity or rather have us to channel the raised funds to our own beneficiary Matthew 25 Children’s Home.
M25 is an amazing home with the capacity of 60 children, but currently can only afford to house around 35. For them to take up more kids from the street, they require funds. Funds for food and school and medical fees. We provide them with fitting clothes, but more clothing will not make the home take in more street children. We therefore invest in the home’s fundraising activities and have provided them with a new website, signposts and funds. The more textiles we collect the more street kids can be taken off the streets.
Please also tell us about your association with UNEP's InTex programme. How did it help?
In the future, European markets will require a PEF (product environmental footprint), certificate. Also, textile products will require a percentage of recycled content.
ACT is one of the only companies that produces products with up to 100% recycled content, and, although it is on a small scale, we function as an example case. The InTex programme prepares Kenyan organisations for the changing requirements in Europe, to make sure Kenyan organisations can keep on exporting textile products to Europe.
We hope the InTex programme will give us an international podium and will provide opportunities to expand our recycling capacity. This year we would like to install mechanical recycling capacity to recover fibres from used textiles and textile waste. This will drastically increase the volumes we can process and opens up many employment opportunities in collecting, sorting and processing textile waste.
