Baijingyu, a second-hand clothing trading firm, runs a sorting facility in Hangzhou.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergChina’s Next Problem Is Recycling 26 Million Tons of Discarded Clothes
- Stigma of wearing used clothes hampers resale of old garments
- Most garments get dumped in landfills, burned, or sold abroad
“Low-carbon, warmth, love,” reads the sign on a large green metal bin, into which Beijing resident Zhao Xiao stuffs her unwanted, old clothes. “If some poor Chinese person really needs them, that would be great and would make me feel less guilty about throwing them away,” said the 35-year-old resident of Dongcheng District.
Zhao is right to worry about what happens to her charitable donation. There are clothing collection bins dotted all around China’s major cities, but few of the garments go to charity. Some are sold to developing countries, others are either burned or buried in landfills.