Have you ever wondered where your donations really go? Even with the utmost goodwill, the majority of donated items, especially clothing, seldom reach the secondhand shelves as intended. Instead, these unwanted donations are imposed upon the Global South by the Global North at unmanageably exponential rates. The United Nations has shared that the global secondhand clothing trade currently circulates over 4.5 million metric tons of secondhand clothing every single year. With fashion consumption expected to grow by 63% to 102 million tons in the next five years, addressing waste colonialism is required to mitigate the vast risks associated with causing more environmental degradation and social injustice.

But what exactly is ‘Waste Colonialism’?.