The Truth Outside the Closet: Where Do the Clothes We Throw Away Go?

The World Beyond the Donation Bin

Dropping clothes into the used-clothing bin at the edge of the neighborhood, most people picture one of two outcomes: the garments will reach someone in need, or they will be unraveled thread by thread and reborn as new fabric. Sorting through the closet each time the season turns, setting aside what one no longer wears, carrying it down to the bin — this has become, for many of us, a familiar habit. The bins stand in every apartment complex, and each time we pass one we feel a quiet reassurance: surely this counts as doing something for the environment. In reality, however, most of those clothes are bound for a market on the other side of the world, in Ghana, West Africa. There, the garments that go unsold pile up in mountains on beaches and in landfills, rotting where they lie and contaminating the waterways nearby. The question — are the clothes we put in these bins actually recycled? — leads, in the end, to a larger one: how we wear and discard clothing in the first place, and who is left carrying the consequences.

Background: The Surge in Clothing Waste

According to figures released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the International Day of Zero Waste in 2025, the world generates 92 million tons of textile waste every year. Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, yet the length of time a garment is actually worn fell by 36 percent. Eleven percent of all plastic waste worldwide originates in clothing and textiles, and as of 2023, only 8 percent of fabric was made from recycled fibers. Inger Andersen, UNEP's Executive Director, has pointed out that unsustainable fashion is deepening the "triple planetary crisis" of climate change, the loss of nature and biodiversity, and pollution and waste. Textile Exchange data cited by the Geneva Environment Network shows that global fiber production nearly doubled from 58 million tons in 2000 to 116 million tons in 2022, and is projected to reach 147 million tons by 2030 if the current trend holds. Behind this expansion in output lies the ultra-cheap, ultra-short-cycle production model known as "fast fashion." A system in which new items pour out every season — or even every few weeks — continually pulls the consumer's buying cycle forward, and shortens the discarding cycle by precisely as much.

Korea is no exception. According to a 2022 report in the Korea Economic Daily, the country generates 82,000 tons of clothing waste annually, an increase of more than 20 percent over 2018. Of that, only 12 percent is resold and reused as secondhand clothing; the remainder is largely landfilled, incinerated, or shipped overseas. Korea is reported to be the world's fifth-largest exporter of used clothing, after the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and China. As major domestic retailers roll out new products in volume each season and ultra-cheap apparel spreads across online shopping platforms, there is real concern that this upward trend in waste will continue.

In recent years especially, as the number of Korean users of ultra-low-cost overseas direct-purchase platforms has climbed sharply, observers have noted the spread of a consumption pattern in which shoppers buy garments costing a few thousand won apiece in bulk, wear them a handful of times, and throw them out. Products sold on these platforms are generally made from cheap synthetic fibers with little durability — designed, in effect, to make long wear impossible from the start — which is cited as a further driver of rising waste. The deeper problem is that this swollen volume of waste has already outstripped the processing capacity of Korea's recycling and reuse infrastructure, and that a structure is hardening in which whatever cannot be handled at home is exported abroad wholesale.