#Recycling / Circular Economy
Project REWEAR investigates diverse economies of rewear as a global practice of circularity
Every year, European households discard millions of tonnes of clothing. Around a quarter of what gets separately collected is exported, much of it classified as rewearable. A significant share ends up in markets like Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana, where an estimated 15 million garments arrive every week. New research published today reveals what happens when that clothing arrives.
The Sorting for Circularity: Project Rewear report, published by Fashion for Good and Circle Economy, is a year-long investigation into the real mechanics of the global secondhand clothing system. The research combines quantitative garment analysis across four EU countries, original fieldwork conducted by local partners in Ghana and Pakistan, and three innovation pilots exploring the practical and economic viability of repair, AI-powered sorting, and digital aftersales infrastructure.
Key findings include:
- Most discarded clothes are wearable. Of 8,280 garments examined across four EU countries, 37% had no damage and 41% had one minor flaw. The barrier to rewear is economic, not material.
- Over 86% of garments sampled at Ghana's Kantamanto Market arrived damaged despite being exported as rewearable, leaving traders who had purchased bales without any guarantee of contents to absorb the full financial and environmental cost of unsellable stock.
- The economics of circularity are shiftable. AI-powered sorting modelled a profit shift from zero to €6.5 million annually for a mid-sized facility. Repair works well for outerwear and denim. For fast fashion basics, costs consistently outweigh resale value.
- Rewear alone is not the answer. Without reducing production, circular strategies risk functioning as a parallel market rather than a systemic solution.
The full report is available now:
https://www.fashionforgood.com/case-study/sorting-for-circularity-rewear/?utm_source=MPL&utm_medium=MPL&utm_campaign=MPL
