Negative impacts of textile waste on people and the environment

Negative impacts of textile waste on people and the environment

The huge amounts of textile waste that countries like Tanzania and Kenya are flooded with on a daily basis have severe consequences for people and the environment. In Kenya, 185,000 tonnes of second-hand clothes were imported in 2019,52 and according to Afrika collect textiles and other local sources local sources, 30–40% of Mitumba is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold anymore. This means that 55,500 to 74,000 tonnes of it was actually textile waste. This amounts to about 150–200 tonnes of textile waste a day.

Up to 69% of the fibres used in clothes are synthetic (mainly polyester) and are therefore oil-based,non-biodegradable plastic.53 After disposal, these microplastic fibres continue to leach into the environment and finally end up in the human food-chain. Microplastic fibres are also released into the air by burning the clothes. In the latest studies, microplastics have been found in the gastrointestinal tract54, blood55 and lungs56 of humans. Especially troubling is the fact that unexpectedly large fibres were found in lungs. Plastic clothes waste will accumulate in the local environment and add to the existing plastics waste crisis in these countries – aggravated by the sheer amounts of textile waste.

There is no infrastructure to dispose of these massive amounts of textile waste, and official dump sites have been overflowing for years. This leads to textile waste being dumped everywhere, along rivers or at settlement borders. Some of it is burned openly, which can lead to health problems for the people living nearby, and the clogging of rivers and drains can lead to floods. The decomposing clothes release methane, a harmful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change; synthetic fabrics like polyester and lycra can take hundreds of years to biodegrade. In addition, many clothes contain hazardous chemicals, used during the production process.57