Plastic Waste, Not Used Clothes: Sensing the Toxic Ends of the Circular Economy

Flows of donated second-hand clothing from the Global North to the Global South have long been integral to solving the surplus problem produced by the garment industry. In light of unprecedented apparel production volumes and stricter environmental regulations for disposal of excess stocks in the Global North, the proportion of new, unsold garments that ends up on this export market has grown exponentially. This paper challenges dominant framings of the transnational used clothing trade as a “circular economy” by examining its toxic ends in Tunisia, North Africa’s largest current importer and re-exporter of used garments. It investigates how those who handle imported used clothing on a day-to-day level to earn a living experience and encounter ever-larger quantities of cheaply-manufactured, synthetic fast-fashion surplus in Tunisia. From the used clothes sorting factory; to the wholesale district; and informal repair shops: this study elucidates diminishing possibilities for value retrieval, cutting short what used to be renewed cycles of circulation, exchange and transformation. Shedding light on these limits to valuation exposes how the profit-maximising logics of global capitalist production increasingly transform textile rests from desirable commodities into toxic surplus, with far-reaching social, economic and ecological consequences in secondary markets.