The other end of America's clothing glut
We are all very much aware of the costs of the production side of America's cheap clothing; I wanted to add complementary view about what happens when we are done with those clothes.
This isn't quoting a news article, and I have no data, this is just me speaking from my experience as a linguist in the Marine Corps often assigned to Africa. In western Africa, there are beaches (for example just east of Lagos) where ships come and dump literally tons of used American clothes, every month. There isn't much coordination with the people on shore (though it's not 0; there are NGOs who help try to organize this, some). But mostly it's just a huge dump of clothes on the beach and people from Lagos come to "shop" for their clothes every 4th weekend. These are all donated by various Americans to various organizations, and this is where the stuff that doesn't get used elsewhere ends up.
One of the phrases in Yoruba I learned in that float was "ku aso": "dead man's clothes." That's what these were called, because the urban myth that sprung up was that Americans have a taboo against wearing clothes dead people used to own. Why else would you throw out these perfectly good clothes? (I have to admit, that's good logic from their standpoint.)
Obviously, this in itself is good: people get free clothes that we don't need anymore. Win win, right? Well, not exactly. Because what was once a thriving textile industry in Lagos and other parts of West Africa is now completely dead: you can't compete with free denim jackets that are available on the beach.
Anyways, this isn't as important as the actual mortal danger south- and east-asian workers face making our clothing, but I thought it deserved to be added to the mix. Buy local, buy union, re-use, re-cycle, and hand down.
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