Recently, the issue of old clothes disposal has again attracted public attention. The Red Cross Society reiterated to citizens who wanted to donate that it "refuses to accept old clothes" because the "processing cost is too high", completely blocking the donation of old clothes. In the end, the only way out for old clothes seems to be to throw them away or sell them as waste. According to statistics from the China Resources Comprehensive Utilization Association, China's textile production reached 43 million tons in 2011, and about 26 million tons of old clothes were thrown away.

Where did these old clothes end up? Relevant departments said that most of them were buried as garbage, but reporters found that this was not the case during the investigation. At present, under the operation of a fairly mature industrial chain, a large number of old clothes have become "export commodities" and traveled across the ocean. In the past, this industry was mainly concentrated in coastal areas such as Guangdong, but with the establishment of online sales platforms, the industrial chain has developed rapidly since last year and spread across China. The number of companies that make money from old clothes has grown from dozens to more than a thousand.

The jeans you discarded this summer may be worn by an African next year. A thriving underground trade channel has gradually emerged, and its legality is still controversial.

4 cents per kilogram

Used clothes sent to Tianjin

"Do you take old clothes?" The reporter asked an old man who has been collecting waste all year round near the community, holding a bag of old clothes sorted out during the season change. "Yes, but the price is very low. I can only sell them by the pound as waste." "These clothes were very expensive when I bought them, and they are still very new." "That's no way. The old and dirty ones won't be taken by the collection station. If someone wants to give them to you, just keep them." After some bargaining, the pile of clothes was finally sold to the old man at 0.3 cents per kilogram.

From the old man, the reporter learned that their waste was sold to a waste collection station near Xuanwumen, where they were packaged and processed and sent to larger waste collection points. When the reporter arrived at the waste collection station, he found several staff members busy loading bundled waste onto a large truck, which was already full of cardboard, plastic bottles, etc., but no trace of old clothes was found.

After searching around, the reporter found a man picking and choosing among a pile of old clothes in an open space behind the collection station. The reporter approached the staff member to ask for the price: "How much do you charge for these old clothes? Where are they shipped to? How do you deal with them?" "40 cents per kilogram, it seems to be shipped to a collection point in Tianjin." The reporter was a little surprised, because he had learned before that Beijing's waste is generally shipped to several large waste recycling centers in the suburbs of Beijing, where they are sorted and processed before being sent to China. Why should these old clothes be processed separately from other waste and sent separately?

"The price they offer is high. I heard that they are a company that specializes in recycling old clothes. That's why we accept them. We didn't accept old clothes before because we couldn't sell them at a good price." "What do they use the old clothes for?" "I don't know. Maybe they are recycling waste." The reporter saw him picking out jeans and summer clothes with better fabrics from the old clothes and putting them aside. "Since they are recycling waste, why do we have to sort them?" "This is what their company requires. Those that are not sorted are called "lump goods" and the price is low. If they are sorted and sold, the price will be higher." After much persuasion, the staff member copied the name and phone number of the Tianjin company that specializes in recycling old clothes to the reporter.

Jeans and other three categories

Most popular

The reporter called the recycling company in Tianjin and said that he had a large number of old clothes on hand and planned to sell them, and asked the company about the purchase price. The person who answered the phone was a salesperson named Lin. He said: "Now the prices are very transparent. You can check them online yourself. It mainly depends on the quality of the goods. The difference is quite big." The reporter said that he had just started this business and wanted to learn more about the market. The other party sent the reporter a website, saying that he could find quotes for various goods on it.

The reporter saw that this was a website for recycling resources trading. There were quotes for various recycling resources such as scrap metal and scrap plastic, and "old clothes" was also among them. The quotes included "400 to 1,200 yuan/ton for old clothes", "800 to 4,000 yuan/ton for second-hand fashion jeans", "800 to 4,000 yuan/ton for summer old clothes", and many other categories. There was also a website that specialized in collecting summer thin old clothes, with the highest quote of 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per ton.

¡°Why are the upper and lower limits of the quotation fluctuating so much?¡± the reporter asked, ¡°So I said the key is to look at the quality of the goods. It¡¯s actually meaningless for you to ask about the price like this.¡± ¡°What kind of old clothes have a high purchase price?¡± ¡°If it¡¯s based on type, jeans, summer clothes, and bras are the most popular, so the prices are naturally high. If it¡¯s based on quality, it depends on whether you have processed them well. Buyers are becoming more and more picky, and they will lower the price if there is any problem.¡±

The reporter expressed the hope to learn how to process old clothes so that they can be sold at a high price. Salesman Lin introduced enthusiastically: ¡°The first thing is to classify them. The sorters divide the old clothes into three categories. One is the newer ones, which can be processed directly; one is the older ones, which will be refurbished and reused; and the last category has no use value.¡±

Since the market for old clothes is best in summer, the sorters will pick out the summer clothes, and the undamaged shirts, T-shirts, and skirts will be disinfected and packaged separately. "As for relatively old clothes, we will also mend and refurbish them. For example, if the legs of a pair of jeans are torn, we can simply cut the trouser legs shorter. If the cuffs of a short-sleeved shirt are worn, we can modify it to become a sleeveless vest."

"The clothes also need to be washed. Old clothes often have stains, whether it is blood, milk, urine, oil, medicine, ink, etc. The more timely the treatment, the better the stain removal effect. On the contrary, the longer the delay, the more difficult it is to remove the stains, and the dirty clothes will definitely not be sold at a high price. When washing, the clothes cannot be discolored or washed out, which will affect the price and the loss will outweigh the gain."

The last step in processing old clothes is disinfection. "We use ozone, 20 minutes at a time, and we can disinfect about 5 tons in 8 hours a day." "What if there are no conditions for disinfection?" "The cost of disinfection is indeed very high. As far as I know, many small companies do not disinfect at all, but the price will be affected."

Purchase price

Increases from north to south

Who will the processed old clothes be sold to? Salesman Lin said that now "there is no need to worry about buyers if there is goods. The market for used clothes is getting better and better. Just post the supply information online and wait for buyers to come." Under his guidance, the reporter logged into a used clothes website. The supply and demand information of buyers and sellers were posted on it. Various information was constantly scrolling, and it looked very active.

The reporter saw that from the addresses of registered members on the website, companies engaged in the used clothes recycling industry are mainly distributed in Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, with most in the south. Salesman Lin said, "There were very few people doing this business in the north before, and they were all concentrated in the coastal areas of Guangdong because they had export trade channels. Now that the online trading platform has been established, China has begun to do this business, and everyone can make money together." The recycling company where salesman Lin works is large in Tianjin, but compared with some companies in Guangdong, it is nothing. "We usually purchase a maximum of 50 tons for shipment. Any more will exceed our processing capacity. Companies in Guangdong purchase 300 to 500 tons in a batch, and some even purchase thousands of tons." Their company's "download buyer" is a trading company in Guangdong, "which specializes in the export of used clothes. It is said that it has been doing this for many years and purchases a large amount."

According to him, the only way out for used clothes is to export them. Even in remote areas of China, no one wants used clothes, and used clothes recycling companies in the north are "newcomers" with basically no access to international buyers. They all ship their goods through trading companies in Guangdong. "Our shipping prices are relatively low, and the money is actually earned by Guangdong people."

Fang Xiaodong, the founder of the website, confirmed this statement, "The price standards for used clothes in different places are not the same. The price of used clothes in Hebei (unsorted) is about 300 to 600 yuan per ton, and the price of used clothes in Zhejiang is about 200 to 300 yuan per ton. In Jiangnan, the price is about 1,200 to 1,800 yuan per ton, while the same goods in Guangzhou are about 2,000 to 3,000 yuan per ton. Generally speaking, the prices in coastal port cities are higher than those in inland cities. "He also said: "After 2012, the used clothing trading industry suddenly exploded like mushrooms after rain. In 2010, there were only 27 companies doing well in the market, but now there are more than 1,500 companies registered on our website."

Value increased more than 10 times

Mostly sold to Africa

A piece of used clothing has been refurbished and processed by multiple recycling companies. After a round from north to south, the final destination is to be exported abroad. "A large part of China's used clothing is exported to Africa." Fang Xiaodong said: "Almost 15% of the visits to our website every day come from Africa." This data is collected mainly based on the visitor's IP address. In addition, the reporter also found procurement information from Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries in the international orders.

Foreign second-hand clothing buyers used to be a hot resource. They were basically monopolized by Guangdong trading companies before, but now it has changed. "African second-hand clothing buyers "check the market" online. They will directly contact "upstream" sellers on the website to buy goods." Fang Xiaodong said.

It is understood that because China does not have relevant standards, the industry currently follows the practice of the international market, and the second-hand clothes exported are divided into Class A, Class B, and Class C. Class A clothes are relatively new, with small quantities, the most popular, and the price is relatively high. Class B has average quality and the largest quantity; while Class C is not easy to sell. The reporter learned that the price of exporting one ton of second-hand clothes is about 5,000 to 8,000 yuan, and the price varies greatly depending on the quality and ratio. From the purchase price of 40 cents per kilogram (400 yuan per ton) given by Tianjin Recycling Company to going abroad, the value of a piece of second-hand clothing has increased more than 10 times.

However, although this business is booming, it is completely gray in China. Imported used clothes, known as "foreign garbage", are prohibited from being sold in China, but there are currently no relevant regulations on the export of second-hand clothing.

There is demand, market, and industrial chain, but there are no regulations, no management, and no industry name. The future of the rebirth of used clothes is uncertain. J024

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