Castoff from the West,pearls in Kantamanto? A critique of second-hand clothes trade

African countries are today the major importers of the lowest grade of second-hand clothing (SHC). With the opening of global markets and the intense circulation of fast fashion in the Global North from the 1990s, the trade of SHC has exploded in the twenty-first century. The fast fashion business model, which fuels the SHC trade, has led to reduced quality of clothes, limited clothing lifetime, and accelerated discard of clothing, which end up as donations or become waste. The complexity of the international geographies of the SHC trade creates opacity and secrecy, maintaining inequalities and imbalances between Global North (GN) and South (GS), which continue a relationship of colonial dependence. This paper presents a critical look at SHC exchange in Kantamanto, the biggest SHC market in West Africa, situated within the central business district of Accra, Ghana. The paper scrutinizes the export of unwanted donated clothing, popularly known as “Obroni w'awu” (white man is dead), to Kantamanto. We use direct observation along with an interpretive research design through the analysis of photos taken from Kantamanto, and scholarly and gray literature. The paper documents local practices of reuse, exposing a duality: on the one hand, clothing's symbolic value that is lost in the GN is reconstituted in the GS through exchange and labor-creating local economies. On the other, the global trade of SHC has become synonymous with dumping, continuing a colonialist relationship between the GN and GS whereby the GN exports unwanted clothing to predominantly African countries’ landfills.     

城市废弃物资源化共生网络:概念、特征及体系解析

挖掘城市废弃物中有价值的资源,已经成为世界各国开展废弃物开发与管理的共同选择。产业共生是推动经济绿色发展和提高资源效率的战略工具,已经成为探讨废弃物资源化利用问题的重要视角。将产业共生理论引入城市废弃物资源化利用领域,提出城市废弃物资源化共生网络的概念,并将其典型特征概括为\"四个统一\",即价值网络与责任网络的统一,集聚共生与虚拟共生的统一,稳健型与脆弱性的统一以及自组织性与主体建构性的统一。借鉴超网络理论构建城市废弃物资源化共生网络体系的结构模型,并从共生单元、共生模式、共生界面和共生环境4个层面对该模型进行详细解析。城市废弃物资源化共生网络可分为核心网络和外围网络,两者之间存在全方位、多层次的合作机制。在城市废弃物资源化共生网络中,共生单元具有多层次性和多样性特征,它们之间存在着不同类型、效率各异的共生关系,推动共生模式向对称互惠一体化共生进化是破解城市废弃物资源化利用难题的关键;共生界面具有物质交换、能量传递、信息共享、知识传播及利益协调等多样化功能,而共生关系的进化以及共生界面功能发挥又依赖于优越的共生环境。此外,城市废弃物资源化共生网络有依托型、平等型、嵌套型和虚拟型等4种运作模式,国内典型案例分析表明这4种运作模式将长期并存。     

Industrial Recycling Networks as Starting Points for Broader Sustainability‐Oriented Cooperation?

Closing loops by intercompany recycling of by‐products is a core theme of industrial ecology (IE). This article considers whether industrial recycling networks or industrial symbiosis projects can be used as a starting point for much broader intercompany cooperation for sustainable development. Evidence presented is based on the results of an empirical investigation of the recycling network Styria in Austria, the recycling network Oldenburger Münsterland in Germany, and the manufacturing sector in Austria. Statistical analysis shows that the percentage of by‐products that are passed on to other companies for recycling purposes is not higher in member companies of the recycling networks than in the other companies of the manufacturing sector in Austria. In terms of cooperation, the relationships with the respective recycling partners are found to be very similar to regular customer relations. Furthermore, the companies of the recycling networks remain unaware of the network to which they belong. Instead, one of the main findings of this study is that intercompany recycling activities are regarded by the company representatives as bilateral market transactions, not as collaborative network activities. This has potentially significant implications for the use of industrial symbiosis networks as starting points for sustainability networks with broader cooperation toward sustainability. The findings raise interesting questions as to whether such broader cooperation might result from a conscious planning process or might emerge largely spontaneously as part of normal market coordination. In any case, intercompany recycling is clearly considered to be a very important field of collaborative action for sustainability in industry.