Waste smuggling: who takes responsibility for dignified jobs in African textile industries?

High-quality garments are redirected from African secondhand clothing markets, leaving the discards and low-empowering labor in local traders’ wake. Human dignity is at stake

The textile waste crisis on the African continent is often misunderstood. Besides capacity and infrastructure bottlenecks, there is a humanitarian element to ‘sorting for circularity.’ First-grade post-consumer garments and vintage pieces are picked out before crossing the border, generating income for Global North countries at every step while leaving big African markets such as Gikomba and Uhuru with low-quality pieces – waste to process. Human dignity is overlooked when African artisans are constrained to resale and sorting tasks, instead of pursuing a career in formerly thriving textile regions. Even upcycling echoes postcolonial dynamics, as the responsibility for salvaging worn and damaged fabric falls disproportionately on them.

Journalist Anna Roos van Wijngaarden moderates a dialogue between textile curator Sunny Dolat and designer Bobby Kolade from the renowned label BUZIGAHILL, about evident and obscured facets of dumping practices in Africa. As a raw conversation unfolds, ‘smuggling’ seems the better term. 

Sunny Dolat and Bobby Kolade discuss the overlooked social impact of textile waste smuggling into Africa

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

As new reports emerge about the dumping of secondhand clothes in Africa, misunderstandings regarding locations and quantities come to light.

SUNNY DOLAT

Much of the data and information being shared is coming out of or is about Ghana. And while it is undoubtedly among the countries receiving the highest volume of secondhand clothing on the continent, I worry this gives the impression that only Ghana receives secondhand clothing. Most of the African continent receives secondhand clothing, from Ethiopia to Togo. However, clear and accessible data about these volumes and dynamics in other parts of the continent is lacking.

BOBBY KOLADE

One question to ask is: who collects this data in Uganda and who has access to it? Reports are often funded by organizations from the Global North commissioned to conduct market research and extract this data. Should we question why they are the ones doing it and whether the reports are biased?

I couldn’t even tell you how many tons of secondhand clothes are imported into Uganda annually. We know African borders are porous, so data collected isn’t necessarily accurate. Some countries are not as severely affected in terms of their local textile industries being completely suffocated by secondhand clothes. South Africa and Rwanda still produce garments, and even Kenya produces garments. But the suffocation level of local industries varies and is highly influenced by the political environment in each country. For instance, in Uganda in the early ’70s, when Ugandan Asians were expelled, they were the managers and engineers at the textile mills. Their departure resulted in an industrial brain drain: Ugandans were unable to manage the factories because they were never given the opportunity to do so. The factories collapsed and most never reopened.

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

When did the import of secondhand clothes into the African continent become a problem for local communities?

BOBBY KOLADE

 It came through charity. Clothes were brought into East Africa by missionaries and Christian organizations as donations and intended for disadvantaged communities. The critical error was attempting charity without tackling the underlying issue: Our countries couldn’t revive once-thriving industries from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. For example, Uganda was a major cotton producer in sub-Saharan Africa in the ‘60s. 

SUNNY DOLAT

It’s been a problem from the start. Kenya was a grower and processor of cotton with a growing textile and garment manufacturing industry in the 80s and 90s. When you look at the data on the growth of secondhand clothing compared to our own local textile and garment manufacturing, a clear correlation emerges: the increase in imports of secondhand clothing was a significant contributor to the decline of our industries. 

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

How exactly did the increasing influx of secondhand textiles into the country lead to the slow death of local production?

BOBBY KOLADE

The quality, diversity, and price point of secondhand garments are often more attractive than locally produced alternatives. It’s always going to be more expensive for the end consumer to purchase a Ugandan-made garment compared to a secondhand denim jacket. Producing a denim jacket for $8 is not feasible for a Ugandan company. Similarly, if a t-shirt costs a dollar or fifty cents, there’s no practical way to produce a brand-new t-shirt at that price. Today, Uganda has only two remaining textile mills working with local cotton. One produces jerseys, while the other manufactures woven textiles mixed with poly fibers.

Secondly, there’s a trust issue. Psychologically, we’ve grown to distrust our own products and even new items from places like China or Turkey. ‘Made in China’ for Africa is perceived as lower quality compared to ‘Made in China’ for Europe. There’s a significant psychological barrier to trusting locally produced goods. Speaking for Uganda, we’ve reached a point where we don’t believe in our own industry anymore. In the past, we were producing school uniforms, official garments, hospital bed sheets—there was a vibrant textile production sector in the 1950s and 60s that abruptly declined in the early 1970s.

SUNNY DOLAT

Another issue is that before the 2000s, clothing was generally made better and with better materials, it was made to last. As fast fashion gained popularity in the Global North in the 2000’s, we started to see more and more of these poorly made fast fashion clothing appear in secondhand bales, and now most bales consist of this type of clothing. On a research visit to Gikomba Market, the largest secondhand clothing market in the region, I heard from several traders that unlike in the early 2000s and late ’90s, when they could sell anywhere between 70% to 80% of a bale and discard only 20%, now, they’re lucky to sell 50% to 60%, leaving between 40% to 50% of each bale as waste. 

The Global North is smuggling waste into the Global South and outsourcing the responsibility of textile waste management to these countries under the guise of ‘aid’ and ‘trade’

I grew up frequenting secondhand markets, Gikomba Market to be specific, as I ran clothes resell business while I was a student in university, so I’m familiar with these markets. One thing that’s always struck me, is that in my many years of going there, I’ve never found Chanel or Dior. That to me indicates an intentional sorting system that ensures the best quality secondhand clothing remains in the Global North, finding its way into thrift stores or vintage stores, while the less desirable secondhand clothing becomes our responsibility, to wear or manage as waste.

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

Have these issues of secondhand textiles threatening local industries and ending up as waste been addressed?

SUNNY DOLAT

Most notably, by the East Africa Community (EAC) in 2016, when the EAC, an economic bloc of five East African countries [Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi] planned to phase out secondhand clothing starting 2020. The American government responded saying that if the EAC proceeded, those countries would be removed from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act [AGOA] trade agreement that allows export to the US under favorable terms. Many countries on the continent have benefited substantially from this agreement, so this was a very direct threat that showed just how profitable the movement of secondhand clothing is for the Global North.

BOBBY KOLADE

The AGOA card is power play. It wasn’t revoked in Uganda then [only Rwanda managed to ban secondhand clothing] but the US government has now revoked the AGOA agreement starting 2025 in response to Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act. It might have been a smart move for the Ugandan government to respond with its own threat – to ban the import of secondhand clothes fully like they wanted to do ten years ago – but in Uganda alone, four million people profit from this trade. We can’t ban it. It’s not just clothing, but also towels, bedsheets, curtains, shoes, bags, belts and any form of textile leftovers or waste that gets imported.  From the truck drivers driving the containers from the Kenyan coast to Uganda, to the vendors in rural areas, the upcycling designers, middlemen, and the tax office: There is a supply chain behind the secondhand clothing trade. 

SUNNY DOLAT

People don’t realize how incredibly profitable this sector is and that between that donation bin and the item landing in Nairobi various costs are ascribed. It’s a very profitable line of business because you take what’s essentially free and decide what the value of them is. 

The language of ‘aid’ and ‘assistance’ employed by the Global Northern countries that claim to help Global Southern countries is also very conditional. You would think that the East African region wanting to revitalize its own textile and garment manufacturing industries would be a good thing, but it appears that the Global North is as equally invested in ensuring that in many ways, certain industries and by extension nations remain reliant on these violent and problematic relationships. 

BOBBY KOLADE

African countries will continue to import secondhand clothes, we are fully integrated in the supply chain. It’s more a question of how to manage it and how to revive our local industry parallel to the importation of secondhand clothing, instead of staying stuck at the end of the chain. 

SUNNY DOLAT

And if the Global North is unable to manage its own textile waste and discarded clothing and insists on exporting it to the Global South, then a broader conversation needs to be had about the compensation of that labor. Because if something is waste or unwearable, then there’s no business for it to be shipped to the Global South. Regions receiving this waste must be equipped and compensated to establish proper waste management systems to prevent it from ending up in rivers and lakes due to overflowing local landfills. Nairobi’s largest landfill in the Dandora region reached full capacity over a decade ago. Despite this, hundreds of trucks still deposit waste there daily because there’s simply nowhere else for it to go. A good place to start addressing the problem is to investigate and interrogate how items are sorted, and the criteria used to determine what stays in the Global North and what gets shipped out. 

BOBBY KOLADE

Sorting facilities are not always based at the site of disposal in Europe. Secondhand clothing collectors in Central Europe ship to tax-free zones like the UAE, where migrant workers from Southeast Asia sort discarded clothes in massive warehouses. After sorting, clothes are packed in bales and sold to sub-Saharan Africa or Pakistan. Good quality pieces and designer items are intercepted and sold to countries like Japan, where there’s high demand for vintage. 

Textile waste smuggling is discrimination: ‘jobs could offer much more dignity’

The question is how long Africans will remain at the bottom of the supply chain. After compensation, renegotiation of laws, and cessation of smuggling, how can we explore alternative industries, considering the persisting import of waste? What are the economic opportunities for us? And can more valuable jobs within the supply chain be brought to sub-Saharan Africa?

There’s an issue with the portrayal of landfill imagery. The Global North may empathize when they see beaches covered in secondhand clothing or plastic waste in landfills, because rubbish is effectively hidden in Europe. But it’s a distraction from what we’re really discussing: that a woman who has sold clothes at a market for 24 years experiences declining quality in clothes she unpacks from bales, and what that means for her work and her son, whom she struggled to educate with funds from selling clothes, and who now sells clothes himself? Are we saying Africans will continue selling clothes at secondhand markets for generations? Not to diminish these vital jobs, but her son could also work as a textile technician in a factory, and her daughter as a designer at BUZIGAHILL. All we’re asking for is choice and dignity. 

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

This social perspective of reducing waste in fashion remains relatively neglected.

SUNNY DOLAT

A common pushback against banning or reducing the quantity of imported secondhand clothing is that these markets provide many jobs, and that’s true, but we must also consider what kind of jobs these are. If we were to revitalize the textile and garment manufacturing sectors in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, the multiplier effect of those jobs would be much higher and importantly, those jobs could offer much more dignity.

I met a seller at Uhuru Textiles Market in Nairobi who had taken over a stall his dad used to run. They have been at the market for the past 35 years. They could have spent that time in a factory or textile plant, where you might start as a machine operator, progress to a floor supervisor after a few years, and eventually become an assistant manager. 

One gentleman at the market, Edgar Otieno, is renowned for introducing this idea of dignified jobs as a value to fight for market workers.

Secondhand clothing processing on the African continent demands fair compensation to save local industries

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

Is this prompt for human dignity and decent jobs part of a bigger conversation in African countries?

SUNNY DOLAT

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame advocated for the ban on secondhand clothing, saying that Rwandans were deserving of new clothing and the dignity that comes with it. This debate is crucial because regardless of your level of education or socio-economic status, being Black and African often means being stripped of your dignity. Whether it’s being subjected to the violence and humiliation of visa applications, or in daily life, like the one-dimensional, stereotypical narratives often foregrounded when speaking or depicting Africa and Africans. 

BOBBY KOLADE

There is a stark contrast between the freedom of material versus human movement. Material can easily be extracted from the Global South, processed in the Global North, consumed, and then smuggled back in the Global South. But for an intellectual mind from a country like Uganda or Kenya to enter Europe is almost impossible. Across the continent, African passport holders are experiencing discriminatory visa denials from the EU. When I’m invited to exhibitions and try to take my team with me, it almost always fails because they have Ugandan passports. 

How can the EU be held accountable for fair compensations and job opportunities for African artisans?

With BUZIGAHILL’s Return to Sender collections, we sell redesigned garments back to the Global North with a passport label carrying the dignified words “Made in Uganda”. Even these passports face discrimination at borders. Under normal circumstances, Made in Uganda products enjoy duty-free entry into trade blocs such as the EU – because the EU is supporting industrial growth in African countries. BUZIGAHILL’s products don’t qualify for duty-free treatment because according to the EU and WTO, new fashion made using secondhand clothes are not “complex ” enough, they are not Made in Uganda. This means every time we export to Europe, we lose up to 18 percent of our revenue on duties plus VAT. Europe profits when clothing is sorted, sold to Africa, and again when businesses like ours sell the clothes back.

SUNNY DOLAT

Dignity is also disregarded in the way fashion brands completely ignore Africa as a consumer market.

These companies only see them for the value of their [cheap] labor. For instance, except for a handful of countries, Zara and H&M are absent on the continent, but do some manufacturing in countries like Mauritius, Morocco, and Madagascar. These products are made in Africa and shipped to be sold in the Global North, only to be shipped back to the continent as secondhand and waste, which is then the point when the people who manufactured them might be able to buy them. So, Africa is only good for inspiration and [cheap] labor?

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

How can Global North legislative power bodies realistically be made accountable?

BOBBY KOLADE

The Or Foundation and Stop Waste Colonialism initiative in Ghana are pushing for an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) fund in the EU. The goal is for clothing producers in the Global North to pay a mandatory tax on every garment produced and for the revenue generated to be distributed to the Global South as compensation for the decades of work already put into processing textile waste and to fund infrastructure to grow the already existing upcycling hubs on the continent.

ANNA ROOS VAN WIJNGAARDEN

In the meantime, a variety of modern design approaches such as upcycling offer solutions, responding to urgency with creative expression.

SUNNY DOLAT

I don’t see enough solutions originating from the people who are causing the problem. Once again, an expectation is being placed on African designers to be responsible for addressing the issue. Take the work of Rummage Studio for instance, based out of Nairobi Rummage Studio make bags and leather accessories all from secondhand leather jackets and trousers salvaged from the market. 

These are amazing initiatives, but I worry about the shift in narrative and expectations, which is that now African design must somehow include secondhand clothing or textile waste to be cool and interesting; African fashion has been limited for decades and there have been several attempts to box it. We can’t afford another one.

BOBBY KOLADE

There is a shift away from this Western interpretation or desire for African fashion that is based around African print. And I’m glad for it, because for a while I couldn’t see any more African print or any white persons wearing them. But there is a risk in current exhibitions or stories featuring mostly ideas of upcycling and other genius forms of craftsmanship that incorporate waste materials. I don’t want to be labeled as a waste processor; I want BUZIGAHILL to be accepted as a luxury brand producing high-end products.

People that also deserve a lot of credit are the unsung heroes at the secondhand markets. At Owino Market, there are sections which look like a small factory, with women using cutoffs and smaller pieces of fabric to make children’s clothes. Nobody talks about them. Nobody sees them. People are literally sitting in this market in their pockets of creativity, distressing denim, altering clothes, redesigning and upcycling, screen-printing, and imitating brand logos, which I think is genius even though it’s problematic because I wish we had our own logos and our own brands to emulate. 

With technology and funding from the Global North, small-scale factories in African countries that have been processing and reducing waste in fashion for decades can be built. Imagine, just imagine, that Adidas would invest 10 million dollars in one of those pockets of creativity instead of spending 10 million dollars on a football team and over-producing jerseys that end up being sold to us anyways.

Bobby Kolade, BUZIGAHILL

Founded by Bobby Kolade, BUZIGAHILL is a Kampala-based clothing brand that works between art, fashion and activism. For their first project series called RETURN TO SENDER, they redesign secondhand clothes and redistribute them to the Global North, where they were originally discarded before being shipped to Uganda.

Sunny Dolat 

Sunny Dolat is a fashion curator, creative director, and producer of international arts and culture projects. He was a key member of the curatorial team for the landmark “Africa Fashion” exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum and supported creative enterprises in East Africa as a partner at Heva Fund. Dolat is co-founder of the Nest Collective and he authored “Not African Enough” in 2016. His latest curatorial contribution was for State of Fashion 2024: Ties That Bind.

Anna Roos Van Wijngaarden