In 2021, China's exports of second-hand clothing to Africa jumped to first place worldwide. That year, Africa imported a total of US$1.84 billion in second-hand clothing, of which Chinese goods accounted for US$624 million, a year-on-year increase of 123%, displacing the United States, which had previously held more than 70% of the market. In the Kenyan market during the same period, Chinese goods accounted for more than 40%. This industrial chain starts at community recycling bins, goes through sorting plants that divide items into more than 140 categories and hydraulic baling, then ships from Lianyungang and arrives at African markets in about three months. At the retail end, a dress that sells for seven or eight dollars when a bale is first opened drops to several items for one dollar.

Key Points

  • In 2021, China's second-hand clothing exports to Africa reached US$624 million, while Africa's total imports that year were US$1.84 billion, with year-on-year growth of 123%.
  • In 2022, domestic old clothing recycling prices were 0.2 to 1 yuan per jin. After sorting, summer clothing sold for more than 7,000 yuan per ton, while autumn and winter clothing sold for only 500 to 600 yuan.
  • A sorting plant in Tengzhou, Shandong, covers 5,000 square meters and has four production lines, processing about 15 tons per day and sorting into more than 140 categories.

The dividing line in this business is sorting, not collection

In 2022, door-to-door old clothing collection was priced by weight, at 0.2 to 1 yuan per jin, putting the purchase cost at about 400 to 2,000 yuan per ton. Once it reached the sorting plant, prices immediately stratified: summer clothing sold for more than 7,000 yuan per ton, while sweaters and other autumn and winter clothing sold for only 500 to 600 yuan per ton, a difference of more than tenfold for the same ton of goods. The reason is not the tag price—Africa and Southeast Asia have hot climates, so T-shirts, shirts, and single-layer trousers have buyers; sweaters and down jackets shipped there just sit in warehouses and become a cost. After deducting site and labor costs in the collection stage, net income was 200 to 2,000 yuan per ton, hard-earned money. What truly creates the price gap is sorting. When the same batch of goods enters the sorting line, it comes out as more than a hundred piles, with shoes, bags, and bedding each having their own price. What sorting plants earn is exactly the margin created by that separation.

One hundred and forty categories depend on hands on both sides of the production line

A few years ago, a reporter visited a sorting plant in Tengzhou, Zaozhuang, Shandong: a 5,000-square-meter workshop, four sorting lines, and three compression balers, billed as the largest old clothing collection and export point north of the Yangtze River. Most workers were nearby villagers, working from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and sorting about 15 tons per day on average. Each worker handled only one category, with at most 30 iron frames behind them. Trousers were first divided by men's and women's, then into shorts, capris, ankle-length pants, and ripped jeans; tops were divided by pure cotton, knit, and synthetic, and at the same time into men's and women's T-shirts, shirts, and outerwear; backpacks were divided into student, computer, leather, shoulder, and double-shoulder bags. The entire plant sorted into more than 140 categories. After a quality inspection pass, damaged and faded items were picked out, and the rest were weighed and pressed into blocks by hydraulic machine, with each bale labeled with an A4 sheet in Chinese and English indicating the category. Balers were paid by piece, earning about 200 yuan per day. By an unwritten industry rule, whatever was found in a bale belonged to whoever found it. The plant manager himself once found a gold ring, a silver ring, and 600 yuan in cash during a second quality check.

After going overseas: African markets rely on grabbing, driven by real downstream demand for clothing

Containers depart from Lianyungang and drift for about three months to Kenya and Uganda. The goods pass through first-tier wholesalers' warehouses, then second- and third-tier ones, and scatter to street stalls. A dress can sell for seven or eight dollars when a bale is opened, then later drop to one dollar for several items. At the Kampala market in Uganda, clothes fetch the highest price just after a bale is opened. The hands of a crowd of women scrambling to pick from a street stall may never in their lives be able to afford a new piece of clothing. A set of figures supports this "grabbing": about half of people in African markets wear second-hand clothes, only one in ten can afford new clothes, and another four in ten cannot even afford old clothes. Of Kenya's population of 54 million, millions make a living from the second-hand clothing trade, close to one-tenth of the national labor force. According to 2021 data, China was already the largest source of supply, and in Kenya alone, Chinese goods accounted for more than 40%.

Those that fail to meet export standards take another path

Old clothing that does not meet the standard of "not torn, not dirty, not worn out, and still wearable" goes into the domestic circulation. The head of a sorting workshop in Yuzhong County, Lanzhou, explained the destinations: items in relatively good condition are disinfected by partner dry cleaners and used for charitable donations; dark-colored clothing is sent to downstream factories to be processed into insulation quilts for vegetable greenhouses; light-colored cotton is sent to other provinces to be made into recycled yarn for producing labor protection gloves; high-quality items are sold to second-hand clothing trading companies in the south. The branching is mostly by color: light-colored cotton can still be shredded and respun, while dark colors are not spun but torn into flocculent filling and pressed into quilts—the thick quilts covering vegetable greenhouses in the cold northern regions in winter may be filled with discarded old clothing.

The scale is moving upward

Industry research institutions estimate that in 2024 China's waste textile recycling volume was 5.15 million tons, and that by 2030 discarded old clothing will rise to 50 million tons per year, with the industry's annual output value expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2026. Globally, second-hand clothing sales in 2023 were US$211 billion, up 19% year on year. These are forecasts and estimates.

The judgment of a Guangzhou exporter cited in the source

A Guangzhou second-hand clothing export company had export transaction value of more than 400 million yuan in 2023, handling tens of thousands of tons of old clothing a year, with more than 60% sent to Africa. The founder summarized the business as "buying second-hand clothes in Africa depends on grabbing," and summarized the difficulty of going overseas as "the goods go overseas, but people find it hard to go overseas"—goods can drift over, but people cannot follow, so if the problem of people cannot be solved, solve the problem of goods first.

Where a button ends up

There are two kinds of recycling bins in communities: those set up by charitable organizations must have public fundraising qualifications and be filed, and are supervised by civil affairs departments; commercial recycling bins set up by enterprises must indicate the responsible entity on the bin, and entering a community requires approval from property management and the community, and according to the rules also the consent of the owners' assembly or owners' committee. The real problem is the third kind: printed with words about caring donations, but backed by no charitable organization and with no one identifiable on the bin as the collector—this is exactly what the media has called out in recent years. At present, this industry is still rough: unclear rights and responsibilities, difficult traceability across the entire chain, and blurred boundaries between public welfare and business. When enterprises register, they may not even find a matching detailed category. From the moment a hand lets go at a community bin, an old T-shirt may become hard currency scrambled for at African markets, or a pair of labor protection gloves, or filling in a greenhouse quilt—none of it is wasted. What the industry needs to fix is making this path clear from the very beginning.

Source: Old T-shirts bought for 0.2 yuan a jin, scrambled for at African markets: China pushed the United States' 70% share down by relying on 140 sorting categories · Originally published on 2026-09-27