The work of Changing Markets is based in particular on customs and import-export data to point out soil, water and air pollution.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
Each year, countless used textiles are sent to the southern countries, and in particular Kenya, where a large part of them end up in Open discharges . “A huge part (…) is made up of articles in synthetic fibers”, according to the Changing Markets Foundation, which points in a report, Thursday, February 16, a situation “fueled by the growing production of cheap synthetic clothes made by brands northern “.
The organization offers an estimate of this ecological disaster, Fruit of an investigation called” Trashion “, neologism formed of” trash “(garbage) and” fashion “(mode). According to these calculations, on more than 900 million used clothes (including 150 million from the European Union and the United Kingdom) shipped to Kenya in 2021, “it is estimated that 458 million used clothes are unusable waste, and that 307 million of them are likely to contain plastic fibers “.
The work of Changing Markets, carried out in September 2022, is based in particular on customs and import-export data. It is accompanied by field work carried out by the non-profit organization Wildlight and the Clean Up Kenya association, who have compiled more than 80 interviews with Kenyan merchants and went to key sites, such as the Dandora’s open -air discharge, at the gates of Nairobi, where tons of filth pile up. 2> Plastic pollution
“The impacts of soil, water and air pollution are considerable,” notes Changing Markets. The organization also highlights the testimonies of Kenyans working in the second -hand trade, telling their wages of misery and the risk for their health, in particular by inhaling the smoke of synthetic clothes that burn.
For Changing Markets, “Western countries use second -hand trade as a decompression valve to deal with the huge problem of waste from Fast Fashion”. The Foundation recommends in particular the use of non -toxic and sustainable materials and the implementation of extended liability sectors – already existing in France. It also recalls that the Basel Convention prohibits the export of waste to countries not having adapted reprocessing capacities.