Europe’s secondhand clothes brings mixed blessings to Africa

An interesting article in The Guardian recently puts a new perspective on the effect of recycling textiles and old clothes

About a third of globally donated clothes make their way via wholesale rag houses to sub-Saharan Africa, where they end up lining the streets or filling small boutiques. Hawkers say Christmas time, when westerners flock to offload clothes to charity shops, brings in the biggest bales. The lucrative industry has even spawned fake charity clothes collectors in the west.

But critics say the billion-dollar trade risks swamping fragile domestic textiles markets, and 12 countries in Africa are among 31 globally that have now banned their import.

(Read the full article here: Europe’s secondhand clothes brings mixed blessings to Africa | World news | guardian.co.uk: .)

What should be done about plastic bags?

Every year 800,000 tonnes of so-called single-use plastic bags are used in the European Union – the average EU citizen used 191 of them in 2010, the Commission says, and only 6% were recycled.

More than four billion bags are thrown away each year.

“The impact of this plastic waste can be seen littering our landscape, threatening our wildlife and accumulating as ‘plastic soup’ in the Pacific Ocean, which may cover more than 15,000,000 sq km,” says Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

So what are the options for addressing the problem and where have they been tried?

(Read more at BBC News – What should be done about plastic bags?: .)