mitumba, waste or we are resigned to fate to import everything?

wrongturn

wrongturn

Elder Lister
“Vendors at Gikomba market in Nairobi told me they are often disappointed when they open the bales because nearly half of the clothes are unusable. Their quality is poor, or they are broken or soiled and are nothing more than textile waste,” said Viola Wohlgemuth, a circular economy and toxics campaigner at Greenpeace Germany.

Before the liberalisation of the markets in the late 80s, thanks to the push by the US for African economies to implement James Baker’s free-market plan, the textile industry – though struggling – was still vibrant.
The thinking then was that developing countries would only achieve growth by adopting free market policies.
But this opened floodgates as cheap second-hand clothes found their way into the market, killing the entire textile sector.
About 85 per cent of Kenya’s textile industries closed shop by the mid-1990s.
And Kenya is not alone. Some of Africa’s major producers of cotton – Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Togo and Uganda – now have thriving second-hand markets and no garment industries.
Kenya’s mitumba business is regarded as an avenue by western nations to offload their waste into developing countries – which all end up in dumpsites.
Greenpeace, in a report titled “Poisoned Gifts” says: “With mitumba continuing to drive the demand for used clothes, this has been at expense of locally made products and local textile industries.”
But the main poser is that most of the second-hand clothes sent to Africa are waste. At Gikomba market, it is normal to find waste disguised as clothes.

Greenpeace says between 30 and 40 per cent of mitumba is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold. This means 55,500 to 74,000 tonnes of it is textile waste. This amounts to 150–200 tonnes of textile waste a day.
But banning the second-hand clothes is still difficult, especially for nations on the continent which signed the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) in order to penetrate the American market.

Agoa, a brainchild of former US President George W Bush, was initially marketed as a scheme to enable countries in Sub-Sahara to export textiles to America.
Attempts to stop the offloading of used American garments to Africa have been followed by bullying since part of the Agoa deal is that the countries could export new clothes to the US and in return allow Washington to export back used clothes.
While donation is said to prevent surplus clothing from going to landfills in western countries, the second-hand clothing business is also believed to be disrupting the emergence of budding textile industries in developing countries.
When Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania attempted to stop the importation of second-hand clothes and apparel from the US in 2015, the Donald Trump administration issued an ultimatum on February 23, 2018 in which they were bullied to rescind the decision or face new tariffs.

Pressure had initially come from United States Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) Association, a group of 40 used clothing exporters.
“The move to curb incoming used clothing is a barrier to US trade, which goes against certain requirements under Agoa,” the group argued.
It added that the move threatened 40,000 sorting and packing jobs in America.
As a follow-up, the Office of the US Trade Representative threatened to remove four of the six East African countries included in the Agoa Act.
While Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania backed out under pressure – after a meeting held in Kampala – Rwanda refused and introduced a tariff of $4 per kilo on imports of used clothing in 2018.

Washington responded by putting tariffs of 30 per cent on Rwandan clothing. Rwanda stopped further imports form the US and started building its textile sector.
“We are put in a situation we have to choose. You choose to be a recipient of used clothes or choose to grow our textile industries. Making the choice is simple,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said.
In one of its brochures, SMART justifies the export of used clothes.

SMART also argues that textile industries in developing countries “can make more money producing clothing for export to wealthier nations in Europe and North America than selling them locally”.
While Rwanda refused to be bullied by the US, the world’s largest exporter of used clothing, it is Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania which continued to be the mitumba outlets.
The trade is organised by charities and organisations that collect the clothes – mostly for free – and sell them in their shops.

Years ago, Prof Anyang Nyong’o – current Kisumu governor – warned Kenyans against accepting used clothes.
“When new clothes are expensive because our import substitution industries are high cost, and cannot produce clothes cheap enough for our workers, there is a tendency for us to rationalise the situation and say: ‘Let us import second hand clothes cheap enough for wage earners’,” Prof Nyong’o said.
“This is a false argument. We need to make it very cheap for those in textile industries to import the latest state-of-the-art technology in the making of textiles which will cheapen production per unit.

nation.africa

Mitumba trade is merely ‘waste colonialism’, Greenpeace insists

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania developed cold feet after threats from the United States but Rwanda stood firm.
nation.africa nation.africa
 
MITUMBA
The used cloth in Kenya and Tanzania is known as "MTUMBA"or "MITUMBA". Mtumba is a Kiswahili word meaning bale or bundle. The used-clothes
or second hand clothes were given are called mitumba because they arrive and sold to retailers in bales. It is said that the
name started to be used in 1980s. In the 60s and 70s, the used clothes were called "KAFA ULAYA" meaning that they are
clothes from someone who died in Europe,but a meaning which lost it's grounds because it was biased,In the first and second worlds the second hand clothes markets exist with dropoff points or booths in every suburbs and streets for dropping old,unused, unfashionable, unfitting clothes,shoes,mats, carpets, utensils,drop booths which are then taken by the local governments or the kanjos of majuu,resorted taken to their predestined local cheap second hand market stalls in designated areas of their populated cities and towns, then the rest is sorted,baled and exported to the third world for a small shipping fee and profit or also supplied for the needy in their rural setups through church and mosque alms organizations.
Mitumba started to enter Tanzania and Kenya before and after independence. They were imported mainly by charitable organizations and
Churches for donating to the poor/needy people. They were freely distributed by charitable organizations or churches to the
people in need.
During the crisis of the economy and the decline of performance of the textile industry sector, Mitumba became very popular.
They were no longer only for the poor people but they were wanted by all categories of people in Tanzania rich, educated,
politicians, children, youth, old etc. The Status of Mitumba became high. Those who wore them, they were appreciated and
praised. It is unfortunately that most of Mitumba were smuggled from neighbour-countries e.g. Burundi, Zambia and
Democratic Republic of Congo.
After the liberalization of the economy, the importation of Mitumba was no longer restricted as for other goods still used by
all categories of the people.
The Importation of Mitumba
In Tanzania, Mitumba are imported by businessmen/women and charitable organizations.
There exist non-profit organizations in all western societies that sell used clothes to for-profit companies in Africa. These "white man's clothes" are quite common in some parts of the continent. This used clothing is called Mitumba in some areas and is surrounded by some controversy. Critics point to it as a threat to local clothing manufacturers and complain that it exploits consumers while others like average Nigerian citizen argue that this used clothing provides useful competition for often expensive and low quality local products.
Before charitable organizations started importing used clothes, cheap cotton clothing from Asia was the biggest import of cotton clothing to Africa. Soon, western charitable organizations began to send used clothing to African refugees and the poor. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are one of the top destinations for the import of used clothing. Although used clothing was commonly sent for the lower class communities, it is now commonly found within other social classes in Africa. Secondhand clothing is found in everyday apparel for many people, regardless of their class difference. This is because there was always a variety of clothing and it was a good price. However, typically in Muslim regions, such as North Africa, do not partake in this trade due to religious reasons. Instead, Islamic African men wear a long flowing robe and women wear hijab along with a dress covering all skin.
Although these clothes are often donated by organizations in belief that people in rural and poor areas will be obtaining them first, the people who live in the cities get the clothing first. Since urban areas are full of fast and changing lifestyles, they are able to adapt to the change in cultures, such as change in tradition dress. These foreign clothes often are drastically different than what people are used to in more rural parts of Africa. People may believe that they are being insulted by being given something that they believe to be old, tattered and dirty. Generally, it seems that most countries have adapted to the use of secondhand clothing and have used it to their advantage.
Impacts of Secondhand ClothesThe second hand clothing industry has left both positive and negative impacts within African society. An impact that one would commonly not think of is the resale of imported western clothing. South Africa, among other nations, has created a legislation of imported/donated good in order to curb the resale of the donated items. Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya and Malawi had to completely ban the importation/donation of second hand clothes in order to try to control the resale.Another negative impact is that is commonly argued is that the importation of western clothing is leaving a negative impact on local clothing producers. However, the opposite side of the argument believes that the high importation creates new jobs for the people living in the port cities. These jobs include the sorting, washing, re-tailoring and transporting of the clothes to the markets. There is a report that revealed that "50,000 people are employed in jobs relating to secondhand clothing in one market in Kampala, Uganda".
Another impact that could be argued either negatively or positively, is that secondhand clothing has become more common to wear than classic African textiles. In Zambia, where it is known as salaula, secondhand clothing has basically become a new type of traditional clothing to them. Zambian cities are full of used clothing markets, which are extremely successful. Since Zambians have been wearing more western clothes traditional textiles and crafts have seemed to become scarce. While Senegal and Nigeria prefer to "follow long-standing regional style conventions, dressing with pride for purposes of displaying locally produced cloth in "African" styles".It can be argued that Zambia is losing a piece of its culture by wearing only western styles or even that people in Senegal and Nigeria are not open minded enough to try to incorporate western styles into their fashion. These differences in beliefs in used clothing help make African fashion a diverse topic.
286222374_5999107786777698_8725764100726936361_n.jpg
 
Meria said:
MITUMBA
The used cloth in Kenya and Tanzania is known as "MTUMBA"or "MITUMBA". Mtumba is a Kiswahili word meaning bale or bundle. The used-clothes
or second hand clothes were given are called mitumba because they arrive and sold to retailers in bales. It is said that the
name started to be used in 1980s. In the 60s and 70s, the used clothes were called "KAFA ULAYA" meaning that they are
clothes from someone who died in Europe,but a meaning which lost it's grounds because it was biased,In the first and second worlds the second hand clothes markets exist with dropoff points or booths in every suburbs and streets for dropping old,unused, unfashionable, unfitting clothes,shoes,mats, carpets, utensils,drop booths which are then taken by the local governments or the kanjos of majuu,resorted taken to their predestined local cheap second hand market stalls in designated areas of their populated cities and towns, then the rest is sorted,baled and exported to the third world for a small shipping fee and profit or also supplied for the needy in their rural setups through church and mosque alms organizations.
Mitumba started to enter Tanzania and Kenya before and after independence. They were imported mainly by charitable organizations and
Churches for donating to the poor/needy people. They were freely distributed by charitable organizations or churches to the
people in need.
During the crisis of the economy and the decline of performance of the textile industry sector, Mitumba became very popular.
They were no longer only for the poor people but they were wanted by all categories of people in Tanzania rich, educated,
politicians, children, youth, old etc. The Status of Mitumba became high. Those who wore them, they were appreciated and
praised. It is unfortunately that most of Mitumba were smuggled from neighbour-countries e.g. Burundi, Zambia and
Democratic Republic of Congo.
After the liberalization of the economy, the importation of Mitumba was no longer restricted as for other goods still used by
all categories of the people.
The Importation of Mitumba
In Tanzania, Mitumba are imported by businessmen/women and charitable organizations.
There exist non-profit organizations in all western societies that sell used clothes to for-profit companies in Africa. These "white man's clothes" are quite common in some parts of the continent. This used clothing is called Mitumba in some areas and is surrounded by some controversy. Critics point to it as a threat to local clothing manufacturers and complain that it exploits consumers while others like average Nigerian citizen argue that this used clothing provides useful competition for often expensive and low quality local products.
Before charitable organizations started importing used clothes, cheap cotton clothing from Asia was the biggest import of cotton clothing to Africa. Soon, western charitable organizations began to send used clothing to African refugees and the poor. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are one of the top destinations for the import of used clothing. Although used clothing was commonly sent for the lower class communities, it is now commonly found within other social classes in Africa. Secondhand clothing is found in everyday apparel for many people, regardless of their class difference. This is because there was always a variety of clothing and it was a good price. However, typically in Muslim regions, such as North Africa, do not partake in this trade due to religious reasons. Instead, Islamic African men wear a long flowing robe and women wear hijab along with a dress covering all skin.
Although these clothes are often donated by organizations in belief that people in rural and poor areas will be obtaining them first, the people who live in the cities get the clothing first. Since urban areas are full of fast and changing lifestyles, they are able to adapt to the change in cultures, such as change in tradition dress. These foreign clothes often are drastically different than what people are used to in more rural parts of Africa. People may believe that they are being insulted by being given something that they believe to be old, tattered and dirty. Generally, it seems that most countries have adapted to the use of secondhand clothing and have used it to their advantage.
Impacts of Secondhand ClothesThe second hand clothing industry has left both positive and negative impacts within African society. An impact that one would commonly not think of is the resale of imported western clothing. South Africa, among other nations, has created a legislation of imported/donated good in order to curb the resale of the donated items. Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya and Malawi had to completely ban the importation/donation of second hand clothes in order to try to control the resale.Another negative impact is that is commonly argued is that the importation of western clothing is leaving a negative impact on local clothing producers. However, the opposite side of the argument believes that the high importation creates new jobs for the people living in the port cities. These jobs include the sorting, washing, re-tailoring and transporting of the clothes to the markets. There is a report that revealed that "50,000 people are employed in jobs relating to secondhand clothing in one market in Kampala, Uganda".
Another impact that could be argued either negatively or positively, is that secondhand clothing has become more common to wear than classic African textiles. In Zambia, where it is known as salaula, secondhand clothing has basically become a new type of traditional clothing to them. Zambian cities are full of used clothing markets, which are extremely successful. Since Zambians have been wearing more western clothes traditional textiles and crafts have seemed to become scarce. While Senegal and Nigeria prefer to "follow long-standing regional style conventions, dressing with pride for purposes of displaying locally produced cloth in "African" styles".It can be argued that Zambia is losing a piece of its culture by wearing only western styles or even that people in Senegal and Nigeria are not open minded enough to try to incorporate western styles into their fashion. These differences in beliefs in used clothing help make African fashion a diverse topic.
View attachment 62821
Click to expand...


Hi debate haiwes go away, we choose one battle either create local jobs like Rwanda did, or be contend with imports and stop whining for the government to create enabling manufacturing environment.
 
For all his faults, at least Kagame knows how to stand up to Western hegemony. Seriously, how do Kenyans depend on wheat exports from Ukraine with all the land we have. But I saw some info from a rancher (a mzungu btw) that a lot of good agricultural land has been subdivided and sold off as residential property.

We export raw coffee and import processed coffee. We have killed our local sugar industry in favour of importing (possible contaminated) processed sugar. We import fish from China. Yaani Chinese fish is being sold lakeside. How low can people sink? Failed even at the most basic level of competence, we import (contaminated) staple food of Kenya from as far as Mexico. Countries that grow corn for their animals are doing much better than Kenyan farmers who grow corn for people's consumption.

But you know what, it's the politicians you elect and are campaigning for day and night (for free btw), who are interested in the current state of affairs, because it's them and their allies who get to control these imports. It's much better for them to eat big in this chaotic situation rather than Kenyans as a whole prosper, if they'll get a smaller piece of the pie.
 
DeepInYourMind said:
For all his faults, at least Kagame knows how to stand up to Western hegemony. Seriously, how do Kenyans depend on wheat exports from Ukraine with all the land we have. But I saw some info from a rancher (a mzungu btw) that a lot of good agricultural land has been subdivided and sold off as residential property.

We export raw coffee and import processed coffee. We have killed our local sugar industry in favour of importing (possible contaminated) processed sugar. We import fish from China. Yaani Chinese fish is being sold lakeside. How low can people sink? Failed even at the most basic level of competence, we import (contaminated) staple food of Kenya from as far as Mexico. Countries that grow corn for their animals are doing much better than Kenyan farmers who grow corn for people's consumption.

But you know what, it's the politicians you elect and are campaigning for day and night (for free btw), who are interested in the current state of affairs, because it's them and their allies who get to control these imports. It's much better for them to eat big in this chaotic situation rather than Kenyans as a whole prosper, if they'll get a smaller piece of the pie.
Click to expand...
These politicians are a reflection of who we the voters really are.
 
wrongturn said:
“Vendors at Gikomba market in Nairobi told me they are often disappointed when they open the bales because nearly half of the clothes are unusable. Their quality is poor, or they are broken or soiled and are nothing more than textile waste,” said Viola Wohlgemuth, a circular economy and toxics campaigner at Greenpeace Germany.

Before the liberalisation of the markets in the late 80s, thanks to the push by the US for African economies to implement James Baker’s free-market plan, the textile industry – though struggling – was still vibrant.
The thinking then was that developing countries would only achieve growth by adopting free market policies.
But this opened floodgates as cheap second-hand clothes found their way into the market, killing the entire textile sector.
About 85 per cent of Kenya’s textile industries closed shop by the mid-1990s.
And Kenya is not alone. Some of Africa’s major producers of cotton – Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Togo and Uganda – now have thriving second-hand markets and no garment industries.
Kenya’s mitumba business is regarded as an avenue by western nations to offload their waste into developing countries – which all end up in dumpsites.
Greenpeace, in a report titled “Poisoned Gifts” says: “With mitumba continuing to drive the demand for used clothes, this has been at expense of locally made products and local textile industries.”
But the main poser is that most of the second-hand clothes sent to Africa are waste. At Gikomba market, it is normal to find waste disguised as clothes.

Greenpeace says between 30 and 40 per cent of mitumba is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold. This means 55,500 to 74,000 tonnes of it is textile waste. This amounts to 150–200 tonnes of textile waste a day.
But banning the second-hand clothes is still difficult, especially for nations on the continent which signed the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) in order to penetrate the American market.

Agoa, a brainchild of former US President George W Bush, was initially marketed as a scheme to enable countries in Sub-Sahara to export textiles to America.
Attempts to stop the offloading of used American garments to Africa have been followed by bullying since part of the Agoa deal is that the countries could export new clothes to the US and in return allow Washington to export back used clothes.
While donation is said to prevent surplus clothing from going to landfills in western countries, the second-hand clothing business is also believed to be disrupting the emergence of budding textile industries in developing countries.
When Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania attempted to stop the importation of second-hand clothes and apparel from the US in 2015, the Donald Trump administration issued an ultimatum on February 23, 2018 in which they were bullied to rescind the decision or face new tariffs.

Pressure had initially come from United States Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) Association, a group of 40 used clothing exporters.
“The move to curb incoming used clothing is a barrier to US trade, which goes against certain requirements under Agoa,” the group argued.
It added that the move threatened 40,000 sorting and packing jobs in America.
As a follow-up, the Office of the US Trade Representative threatened to remove four of the six East African countries included in the Agoa Act.
While Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania backed out under pressure – after a meeting held in Kampala – Rwanda refused and introduced a tariff of $4 per kilo on imports of used clothing in 2018.

Washington responded by putting tariffs of 30 per cent on Rwandan clothing. Rwanda stopped further imports form the US and started building its textile sector.
“We are put in a situation we have to choose. You choose to be a recipient of used clothes or choose to grow our textile industries. Making the choice is simple,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said.
In one of its brochures, SMART justifies the export of used clothes.

SMART also argues that textile industries in developing countries “can make more money producing clothing for export to wealthier nations in Europe and North America than selling them locally”.
While Rwanda refused to be bullied by the US, the world’s largest exporter of used clothing, it is Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania which continued to be the mitumba outlets.
The trade is organised by charities and organisations that collect the clothes – mostly for free – and sell them in their shops.

Years ago, Prof Anyang Nyong’o – current Kisumu governor – warned Kenyans against accepting used clothes.
“When new clothes are expensive because our import substitution industries are high cost, and cannot produce clothes cheap enough for our workers, there is a tendency for us to rationalise the situation and say: ‘Let us import second hand clothes cheap enough for wage earners’,” Prof Nyong’o said.
“This is a false argument. We need to make it very cheap for those in textile industries to import the latest state-of-the-art technology in the making of textiles which will cheapen production per unit.

nation.africa

Mitumba trade is merely ‘waste colonialism’, Greenpeace insists

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania developed cold feet after threats from the United States but Rwanda stood firm.
nation.africa nation.africa
Click to expand...
Like him or Nott David Ndii addressed this issue in a way I think makes a lot of sense
 
wrongturn said:
Hi debate haiwes go away, we choose one battle either create local jobs like Rwanda did, or be contend with imports and stop whining for the government to create enabling manufacturing environment.
Click to expand...
Do you know Rwanda have no variety in clothing options? Most of them rely on their relatives bringing clothes from travels in other countries....kuna shida pia if the local industry you are talking about brings no versatility in the fashion sector
 
DeepInYourMind said:
For all his faults, at least Kagame knows how to stand up to Western hegemony. Seriously, how do Kenyans depend on wheat exports from Ukraine with all the land we have. But I saw some info from a rancher (a mzungu btw) that a lot of good agricultural land has been subdivided and sold off as residential property.

We export raw coffee and import processed coffee. We have killed our local sugar industry in favour of importing (possible contaminated) processed sugar. We import fish from China. Yaani Chinese fish is being sold lakeside. How low can people sink? Failed even at the most basic level of competence, we import (contaminated) staple food of Kenya from as far as Mexico. Countries that grow corn for their animals are doing much better than Kenyan farmers who grow corn for people's consumption.

But you know what, it's the politicians you elect and are campaigning for day and night (for free btw), who are interested in the current state of affairs, because it's them and their allies who get to control these imports. It's much better for them to eat big in this chaotic situation rather than Kenyans as a whole prosper, if they'll get a smaller piece of the pie.
Click to expand...
You have left out the part where ministers of health are flown to other countries on taxpayer money
 
The.Black.Templar said:
Do you know Rwanda have no variety in clothing options? Most of them rely on their relatives bringing clothes from travels in other countries....kuna shida pia if the local industry you are talking about brings no versatility in the fashion sector
Click to expand...

I thought we agreed to choose the option of imports and stop whining about the lack of jobs? Mitumba sector is very huge and has employed millions and also comes with great versatility in fashion.
 
wrongturn said:
I thought we agreed to choose the option of imports and stop whining about the lack of jobs? Mitumba sector is very huge and has employed millions and also comes with great versatility in fashion.
Click to expand...
Exactly, Rwanda is another example why local textile shops would never work here in kenya
 
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