China produces about 3.1 billion pieces of old clothing every year, and the vast majority either sit in wardrobes for long periods or are thrown out as household waste to be landfilled or incinerated. Due to hygiene and other concerns, China bans the resale of second-hand clothing as finished garments, but allows recycled clothes to be broken down and processed into raw materials; in countries such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and India, old clothing recycling has long been included in the environmental protection industry and supported by policy.

Key points

  • China generates about 3.1 billion pieces of old clothing each year, bans resale as finished garments, and only permits recycling and reprocessing.
  • About 10% of recycled old clothing is used for charitable donations, while the rest goes to regeneration, export, and handicraft processing.
  • Data from the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR): every 1 kilogram of used clothing used can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.6 kilograms and save 6,000 liters of water.

Many people equate old clothing recycling with charitable donation, but that is not the case. Old clothing recycling can be run by commercial organizations and can also be a public-interest activity. When operated commercially, it is part of the renewable resource recycling industry and should be viewed as normal market activity. In terms of actual flows, only about one tenth is used for charitable donations, while most old clothes go down three paths: regeneration, export, and handicraft processing.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, there are currently three destinations for old clothes in China: donation after disinfection, export, and resource regeneration. The industry also faces many practical difficulties: mismatch between supply and demand, difficulty controlling the supply of categories, warehousing management and the disinfection issues that come with it, and challenges in the transportation stage. A very small number of old clothes in especially good condition are disinfected and then donated to poor mountainous areas and other places in need.

In terms of export, apart from China, the main countries exporting old clothes to Africa include the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea. Among them, the United States accounts for more than 70% of Africa's old clothing market, followed by developed countries such as Japan and South Korea. Take Cameroon in West Africa as an example: it imports more than 20,000 tons of old clothes from Europe in a year.

There are three technical routes for resource-oriented recycling. Physical recycling uses mechanical assistance to decompose or crush textiles without destroying the chemical structure of polymers; after collection, sorting, purification, drying, and adding additives, they are reused in fabric production. Chemical recycling depolymerizes and decomposes the high-molecular polymers in natural fiber or chemical fiber waste textiles, then repolymerizes and spins them to obtain monomers before making new fibers. Energy recovery targets chemical fibers with high calorific value that cannot be recycled again, converting them into heat through incineration for thermal power generation. After physical and chemical recycling, products such as blankets, fabrics, clothing linings, automotive soundproof nets and seat linings, and regenerated clothing can be produced.

According to research by the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), every 1 kilogram of used clothing used can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.6 kilograms and save 6,000 liters of water. At present, most people's old clothing is still mixed into household waste and landfilled or incinerated, which both wastes resources and creates environmental risks; moving them from the trash can to the recycling bin can create significantly different value from the same batch of textiles.

Source: Where does old clothing go after recycling? · Originally published on 2022-07-05