The Clothes We Throw Away Are Telling Us Something

A few months ago, I watched a garbage truck unload waste at a dumpsite. Mixed in with food scraps, broken plastic buckets and cardboard boxes were clothes. Lots of them. Children’s sweaters. Jeans with one leg ripped open. School uniforms. T-shirts that had clearly seen better days.

I remember thinking how strange it was.

Clothes are made to be worn. Yet here they were, piled in the dirt as if they had never meant anything to anyone.

That image has stayed with me because it says something about where we are today.

Kenya is becoming a country that throws away more clothes than we realise. The worrying part is that very few people are talking about it.

Whenever environmental issues come up, the conversation almost always turns to plastic. Plastic bottles, plastic bags and plastic packaging dominate headlines. They deserve the attention, but they’ve also managed to overshadow another growing waste stream that’s quietly filling our dumpsites.

Textiles.

For many years, Kenyans had a different relationship with clothing. A shirt wasn’t discarded because it faded slightly. A tailor could patch it up, adjust the sleeves or replace a zip. Clothes moved through families. Older siblings passed them down to younger ones. Neighbours exchanged garments. What couldn’t be worn became cleaning rags around the house.

Very little was wasted.

That culture is slowly changing.

Some of it is because fashion changes faster than it used to. Some of it is because clothes have become cheaper. Some of it is because second-hand clothing arrives in volumes that our market simply cannot absorb.

Mitumba has undoubtedly changed lives for the better. It has given millions of Kenyans access to affordable clothing while creating employment for traders across the country. Walking through markets like Gikomba or Kongowea, it’s impossible not to appreciate the energy that the business creates.

But every trader knows there are clothes that nobody wants.

Some garments are too damaged to sell. Others are stained beyond repair or made from materials that have already reached the end of their lifespan. They leave the market the same way they entered, except this time they’re heading for a dumpsite.

That’s where the real problem begins.

Unlike organic waste, many modern fabrics don’t break down quickly. Polyester, nylon and acrylic are essentially plastic in another form. When they’re dumped or burned, they create environmental problems that don’t simply disappear after the rainy season.

What makes textile waste frustrating is that so much of it still has value.

An old cotton shirt might become industrial cleaning cloths. Denim can be repurposed into insulation materials. Textile fibres can be blended into new products. Around the world, businesses are finding creative ways to recover value from old fabrics.

Here in Kenya, those ideas remain the exception rather than the norm.

Part of the challenge is that textile recycling isn’t easy. Clothes are made from different materials, often mixed together in a single garment. Separating fibres requires technology and investment. That’s one reason textile recycling has lagged behind plastic recycling.

Still, doing nothing isn’t much of a strategy either.

Every year we continue adding more textile waste to landfills that are already under pressure. Counties struggle to manage ordinary household waste, yet textile waste keeps growing without receiving much policy attention.

I also think we need to be honest about where responsibility lies.

Consumers have a role. We buy clothes, wear them and eventually throw them away. But the bigger issue sits higher up the chain. Global fashion brands now produce clothing at a speed the world has never seen before. The faster clothes are produced, the faster they are discarded. Countries like Kenya become part of that cycle even though we aren’t the ones driving it.

That doesn’t mean we’re powerless.

Kenya has some of the most creative young entrepreneurs on the continent. Give them a problem and they’ll usually find a way to build a business around it. We’ve seen it happen with plastic waste, agricultural waste and renewable energy. Textile waste could be next if investors, universities and government gave it the attention it deserves.

What encourages me is that public conversations can change surprisingly fast.

Ten years ago, very few people imagined Kenya would become known for one of the world’s strongest plastic bag bans. Today, that policy is recognised far beyond our borders. It happened because people accepted there was a problem worth solving.

Textile waste hasn’t reached that point yet.

Maybe it will.

Because every shirt lying in a dumpsite, every torn jacket blowing across an open field and every pile of discarded fabric behind a market is quietly asking the same question.

How much longer can we keep treating clothes as disposable in a country that’s already struggling to manage its waste?

Sooner or later, we’ll have to answer it.