EU countries dumping 37 million items of 'junk plastic clothing' in Kenya every year: New Investigation A recent investigation by Cl...

EU countries dumping 37 million items of 'junk plastic clothing' in Kenya every year: New Investigation

A recent investigation by Clean Up Kenya and Wildlight for the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) has discovered that European countries are discarding 37 million units of "junk plastic clothing," also known as Mitumba, in Kenya each year. These garments are considered to be "fashion waste" and are too dirty and damaged to be recycled, which poses significant health and environmental risks to vulnerable communities in Kenya.

According to a research company associated with the United Nations, over two-thirds of fashion waste contains non-recyclable plastics such as nylon and polyester, which are environmentally hazardous. Clean Up Kenya founder and patron Betterman Simidi Musasia states that a significant portion of clothing donated to charity eventually ends up as Mitumba because the fast fashion industry is primarily dependent on plastic, which renders plastic clothing useless. In some areas of Kenya, investigators found piles of junk clothing that rose as high as four-story buildings and polluted rivers. African countries have become an "escape valve" for European Union (EU) countries' "systemic overproduction."

"Traders buy bundled clothing blind and understandably dump the growing percentage that turns out to be useless," Musasia explains. He further claims that the increasing number of imports has created polluted soil, air, and water in poorer countries like Kenya.

According to the UN Comtrade Database, the EU and the UK exported over five million tonnes of used textiles between 2019 and 2020. Germany, Poland, the UK, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Lithuania, Estonia, France, and Ireland were found to be responsible for 95% of all second-hand clothing exports from the EU to Kenya in 2021, with a total value of nearly €25 million (roughly Ksh 3.3 trillion). Germany exported more than 50 million clothing items, of which over 25 million were waste and almost 17 million were plastic-based. Poland and the UK jointly exported over 12 million plastic-based items in the same year.

CMF's campaign manager, George Harding-Rolls, cautions of the potential global danger if the situation is not controlled by the fashion industry. "Unless the fashion industry is fundamentally changed, what we have seen in Kenya and around the world will be just the beginning," he says. However, Rolls suggests that the solution is not to shut down the second-hand clothing trade but rather to reform it by implementing boundaries and rules such as comprehensive, strict recycling and reuse targets while shifting fashion towards more high-quality, sustainable fabrics.

The report by CMF comes at a time when the Kenyan government has threatened to ban Mitumba. The Investments, Trade, and Industry Cabinet Secretary, Moses Kuria, stated that the Kenya Kwanza administration would eliminate second-hand clothes if it found a substitute from the local textile industry.