The Global Waste Paradox: When Circularity Turns Political

In Ghana and Kenya, the word waste does not describe a material condition; it describes a moral verdict. In the bustling Kantamanto Market in Accra and the dense trade networks of Nairobi’s mitumba sector, secondhand clothes sustain entire economies. They are unpacked, sorted, repaired, resold, and reworn in a system that supports millions of people—mostly women and young traders—and provides affordable access to clothing for almost every household. In Ghana, the secondhand economy moves between five and ten million dollars daily. In Kenya, it contributes about KSh 12 billion to public revenue each year and directly or indirectly employs two million citizens. These are not fringe activities, but critical economic circuits embedded in the national fabric.

Yet these same systems are being recast in global policy as waste conduits rather than circular models. The UNEP Circularity and Used Textile Trade Project, by seeking to define what counts as “used” versus “waste,” has unintentionally placed functioning reuse economies under threat. Behind the bureaucratic language of classification lies a very real human cost: entire markets risk being delegitimised by a single technical definition. When policymakers far removed from these realities treat reuse as contamination, they do not advance circularity—they dismantle it.

The tension is not about data; it is about dignity. As Kenya’s Mitumba Consortium chair, Teresiah Wairimu Njenga, observes, the label “waste” has become a political weapon. “The problem is that ‘waste’ has become a political label rather than a scientific one. Once an item is defined as waste, it instantly moves from being part of a legitimate trade to something that must be prohibited or stigmatised. Mitumba is a commodity, not waste. Our sector keeps garments in circulation, supports livelihoods, and cuts emissions. When ‘waste’ is used imprecisely, it becomes a tool for trade restriction, not environmental protection.” Her words capture a larger grievance—that under the rhetoric of environmental care, livelihoods are being criminalised.

For Ghanaian traders, the question is not whether guidelines are needed, but who writes them. Edward Atobrah Brinkley of the Ghana Used Clothes Dealers’ Association argues that those already sustaining circularity should have equal authority in defining it. “We, the traders in Africa, are experts in textile circularity. We transform what the Global North labels as disposable into a valuable resource, creating livelihoods and providing affordable clothing. Those of us engaged in the trade must have equal standing in shaping a definition that reflects the circularity already being practised in our markets. If items are destined for disposal or end up in landfills without any further reuse or economic value, they can be counted as waste.”

Their frustration also reflects a deeper sense of betrayal. For years, international agencies celebrated reuse markets as models of low-carbon ingenuity. Now, the same institutions appear to demonise them. The dissonance is striking: the Global South is being scolded for “importing waste” even as it performs the very labour of circularity that the Global North struggles to achieve. Traders who extend the life of garments are treated as polluters, while corporations that overproduce them are partners in sustainability. It is a moral inversion that drains the word “circularity” of all credibility.

The economic argument is equally sharp. Restricting the flow of used textiles would not end demand for affordable clothing; it would simply redirect it to the cheapest new garments from Asia, accelerating overproduction and emissions. What would disappear are the repairers, sorters, and recyclers—the human infrastructure of circularity. If the purpose of global policy is to reduce waste, it cannot begin by destroying the world’s most efficient reuse systems. To call their trade waste is not just wrong; it is a political act of erasure.

If the politics of “waste” expose who gets to decide value, the debate over evidence shows who gets to define truth. The UNEP project has become a case study in how data—or the lack of it—can be used to consolidate authority rather than distribute it. The numbers do not add up, and no one outside UNEP can verify why. Transparency, that buzzword, has taken a proverbial; hike.

Core figures on textile waste volumes, non-reusable fractions, and shipment classifications have been presented without any disclosure of how they were gathered, sampled, or even validated. In other words, global policy is being drafted on evidence that cannot be peer-reviewed or replicated. This methodological secrecy undermines not just the legitimacy of the process but the very notion of scientific neutrality that UNEP claims to represent. Stakeholders describe “rushed timelines,” limited access to drafts, and consultations dominated by a handful of Western NGOs—a pattern that mirrors the bureaucratic choreography of consultation without consent.

Alan Wheeler, Chief Executive of the UK’s Textile Recycling Association (TRA), captures this growing unease. “The secondhand clothing trade is an essential part of the global circular economy, supporting livelihoods, affordable access to clothing and significant environmental savings. Any international guidance must be grounded in transparent, evidence-based analysis developed with the full participation of stakeholders in the Global South who work in and depend on this trade every day. We remain ready to engage constructively with UNEP to ensure that future policy reflects both environmental responsibility and social and economic reality.” His statement is both an appeal and an indictment: the kind of transparency he describes does not yet exist.

That absence of openness turns environmental governance into a bureaucratic farce—an ostentatious show of inclusivity masking brazen exclusion. The irony is parlous: an initiative meant to bring scientific rigour to global trade now needs to be criticised for operating with less transparency than the very industry it seeks to regulate. Without disclosure of its data or definitions, UNEP’s exercise in evidence-based policy risks becoming an evidence-free zone.

Arnaud Brunet, Director-General of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), takes a more diplomatic tone but underscores the same concern. “We recognise the importance of UNEP’s Circularity and Used Textile Trade Project, which addresses a critical need in the global textile sector. The project aims to ensure transparent and consistent classification of used textiles traded under HS code 6309, promote sustainable development, and advance global environmental agendas. These are objectives we fully support. For the guideline to be most impactful, we believe it should reflect the existing realities of used textile flows and market demand in importing countries. In many of these countries, established reuse economies have developed around the sorting, repair, reuse, and upcycling of secondhand textiles. Several studies have documented positive socio-economic impacts of secondhand textile trade in importing countries, including employment creation, affordable access, and gender inclusion.”

His argument cuts through the bureaucratic fog: if guidelines ignore the empirical realities of the markets they claim to govern, they are not global—they are parochial. Both Wheeler and Brunet are essentially asking the same question: how can a project that preaches evidence-based circularity begin by concealing the very evidence on which it stands?

This credibility gap is more than a technical flaw; it is a political one. The compressed timetable—driven by UNEA-7’s December 2025 deadline—has left little room for independent verification or regional expertise. By mistaking speed for legitimacy, UNEP risks replacing the rigour of science with the optics of progress. If circularity is to mean anything beyond rhetoric, its first condition must be truth—not consensus manufactured under pressure, but transparency that withstands scrutiny.

For all its claims of neutrality, the UNEP project has become entangled in a murky web of corporate and political influence that undermines its credibility. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ghana, where the project’s local research partner receives millions in funding from a leading ultra-fast-fashion brand—one widely blamed for fuelling the very overproduction that circularity is meant to curtail. The resulting optics are disastrous: the polluter has been invited to help define pollution.

This funding arrangement—a $50 million “extended producer responsibility” commitment—gives the sponsor enormous leverage over both research framing and public narrative. It also reveals the growing convergence between fast fashion philanthropy and global sustainability policymaking. What might once have been called lobbying now wears the language of partnership. When public institutions lend legitimacy to corporate-funded research, they risk transforming science into strategy—a strategic green gloss for reputational rehabilitation.

Jessica Franken, Government Affairs Director of the US-based Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), warns that the real battle is not about waste at all, but about control. “The politics of ‘waste’ are really the politics of value: who gets to decide what still has life left in it, and who benefits—or loses—when that judgment is wrong. Definitions crafted in the Global North have long determined what can move across borders and who participates in trade. When those decisions are made without genuine participation from the Global South, they reinforce inequities and obscure the environmental value of reuse economies that thrive in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” Her words cut to the heart of the matter: circularity, as currently practised, risks becoming a new form of gatekeeping.

The incongruity here is that the very actors being vilified as “importers of waste” are the ones mitigating the environmental damage created elsewhere. In Accra’s Kantamanto Market or Nairobi’s Gikomba, the labour of reuse diverts millions of garments from landfill each week—far outpacing the performance of high-tech recycling systems celebrated in Europe. Yet, instead of supporting these organic circular economies, policy energy is being funnelled into speculative technologies and corporate reporting frameworks that deliver more headlines than results. The green economy, it is increasingly apparent, has been captured not by innovators but by image managers.

This inversion reflects a larger hypocrisy embedded in global sustainability governance. Under the banner of environmental justice, wealthy nations often dictate standards that protect their own industries while constraining southern economies. Definitions, methodologies, and timelines are written in Northern boardrooms, while their consequences unfold in African markets and Asian sorting centres. The Global North continues to externalise both its surplus and its guilt, exporting garments and then exporting definitions that criminalise the trade. Circularity, in this sense, has become the newest expression of soft power—moral regulation disguised as ecological virtue.

For traders like Njenga and Brinkley, this dynamic is more than theoretical. They see it in every customs inspection that treats mitumba as suspect, in every report that cites inflated “waste” figures without verification, and in every partnership that prioritises Western recycling technology over the proven efficiency of reuse. The so-called “circular transition” increasingly looks like a redirection of power—a way for the Global North to regulate the Global South in the name of sustainability, while leaving its own production excess largely untouched.

The UNEP project was meant to confront the moral imbalance of fast fashion. Instead, it is institutionalising it. By drawing legitimacy from corporate alliances and dubious data, the agency has blurred the line between governance and greenwashing. It has treated transparency as optional, inclusion as symbolic, and evidence as proprietary. For critics, this is not simply a policy failure—it is a betrayal of principle.

True circularity cannot be outsourced, nor can it be dictated from the top down. It must begin with those who already make it real: the traders who rescue value from discard, the recyclers who work without subsidy, the communities that live within ecological limits because they must. Until the power to define value is shared, “circularity” will remain what it has become—a closed loop of policy, politics, and profit, endlessly spinning but never renewing.