The Circularity Paradox: Second Hand Clothing

The Circularity Paradox: Is the Second-Hand Clothing Boom Fueling, Not Fighting, Fast Fashion?

The rise of the second-hand clothing market has long been championed as a beacon of hope in the fight against fast fashion's environmental and ethical toll. From charity shops to trendy online consignment platforms, buying "preloved" garments is widely promoted as a sustainable choice, a direct antidote to the relentless cycle of new production and waste. Yet, a recent critical study, "From Preloved to Reloved: How Second-Hand Clothing Companies Facilitate the Transaction of Used Garments" by Turunen and Gossen (2024), published in the Journal of Sustainability Research, issues a stark warning: the very business models designed to promote reuse may inadvertently be accelerating consumption, creating a "circular economy rebound" effect that undermines true sustainability.

This research, focusing on the Finnish market, peels back the glossy veneer of sustainable marketing to reveal a fundamental tension: the inherent conflict between profit-driven transaction and genuine sufficiency. It's a paradox that demands urgent attention, especially as the Global North's textile waste crisis increasingly becomes the Global South's problem, manifesting as "waste colonialism."

The Core Contradiction: Transaction vs. Sufficiency

Turunen and Gossen's study dives deep into the operational and marketing strategies of 20 Finnish second-hand clothing companies. Their central, unsettling finding is that these businesses, despite their environmental mission, are predominantly structured around prioritizing transactions and profitability over sufficiency-oriented practices.

Sufficiency, in the context of sustainability, refers to a reduction in overall consumption; it's about making things last, repairing, reusing, and ultimately buying less. However, the authors argue that the high operational costs associated with sorting, cleaning, marketing, and selling second-hand items—which is often a labor-intensive process—compel these companies to prioritize high-volume sales. To survive and thrive, they must encourage frequent purchasing, often mirroring the very tactics employed by fast fashion retailers.

This creates a self-defeating loop. The more efficiently a second-hand company sells, the more it encourages people to buy. If consumers are merely replacing new purchases with second-hand ones, that's a win. But if the "thrill of the find" in a second-hand store leads to additional purchases, beyond what's truly needed, then the net environmental benefit diminishes, and the potential for a "rebound effect" becomes very real. The sustainability argument hinges entirely on whether buying second-hand displaces new purchases, or merely supplements them.

Marketing Tactics: Unmasking the "Circular Economy Rebound"

The research meticulously details how specific marketing tactics, seemingly benign, contribute to this rebound effect:

1. Tactical Pricing and Discount Culture: The prevalence of constant discounts, sales events, and "bargain hunting" is a hallmark of both fast fashion and, increasingly, the second-hand market. While discounts make second-hand clothing more accessible, they can also encourage impulsive buying rather than considered need-based purchases. The psychological allure of a "good deal" can override genuine need, leading to purchases that are ultimately superfluous. This directly mirrors the addictive cycle created by fast fashion's perpetual sales.
2. Novelty-Driven Merchandising: Just like fast fashion relies on a constant churn of new collections to generate excitement, many second-hand companies also focus on frequent inventory turnover and the "novelty" of new arrivals. This approach encourages consumers to constantly browse and buy, chasing the next unique item. This subtly reinforces the consumerist mindset that constantly seeks novelty, rather than cherishing existing garments or promoting a slower approach to fashion.
3. Credit for New Purchases: Perhaps the most direct route to the "rebound effect" identified in the study is the practice of offering credit to sellers, not just for further second-hand purchases, but for the acquisition of brand-new items. This directly links the act of "sustainable" selling to the enablement of new consumption, actively contributing to the linear economy rather than disrupting it.

These findings are particularly pertinent to countries in the Global North, where the sheer volume of textile waste necessitates robust second-hand and recycling channels. However, if these channels merely become more efficient at processing waste without genuinely reducing overall consumption, the problem is simply deferred, not solved.

The fast fashion graveyard in Chile's Atacama Desert - BBC News

Policy Gaps and the Shadow of Waste Colonialism

The Turunen and Gossen study implicitly underscores a crucial point that resonates deeply with the issues of "waste colonialism": the market alone cannot solve systemic ethical and environmental problems. The report points to a lack of collaboration within the second-hand sector itself, partly due to the divergent goals of profit-driven businesses versus non-profit charities. This fragmentation hinders comprehensive waste management and the development of truly circular systems.

This internal struggle in the Global North's second-hand market has direct, devastating consequences for the Global South. As our People's Hub Call for Papers on Second Hand Clothing Pipeline highlights, the inability or unwillingness of developed nations to manage their textile waste domestically leads to the massive export of low-quality, unsellable garments. These items flood markets in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and other nations, overwhelming local infrastructure and destroying indigenous textile industries.

The "circular economy rebound" identified by Turunen and Gossen in Finnish markets has a chilling parallel in the Global South: if second-hand companies in the North, driven by profitability and consumption-oriented marketing, continue to process vast quantities of fast fashion discards, a significant portion of that discard will inevitably become unsellable, destined for export as "waste colonialism." The more the second-hand market facilitates the churning of low-quality fashion in the North, the more waste arrives at the doors of developing nations, creating environmental catastrophe and stifling local economic growth.

Towards a Truly Sustainable Second-Hand Future

The paper advocates for critical policy interventions to shift the second-hand market towards genuine sustainability:

1. Reduced Taxation: Policies such as reduced VAT (Value Added Tax) on reused products could make truly circular business models more profitable without relying on high-volume, potentially excessive, sales.
2. Quality and Traceability Labels: Implementing clear labeling schemes for reused products, detailing their quality, origin, and any repairs, would build greater consumer trust and promote the value of durability over novelty. This aligns with calls for greater supply chain transparency across the entire fashion sector.
3. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): While not explicitly detailed by Turunen and Gossen, their findings strongly reinforce the urgent need for mandatory EPR schemes for textiles in the Global North. EPR would hold manufacturers financially accountable for the end-of-life of their products, incentivizing them to design for durability and recyclability. This would drastically reduce the flow of low-quality garments into the second-hand market and, by extension, into the Global South.

The "From Preloved to Reloved" study serves as a crucial reality check. It challenges the comfortable assumption that simply buying or selling second-hand is inherently sustainable. For the second-hand clothing industry to truly be a force for good, it must consciously decouple its business model from the consumption imperative and align more deeply with principles of sufficiency and genuine circularity. Without robust policy frameworks and a collective shift in consumer and industry mindset, the second-hand boom risks becoming yet another intricate cog in the machinery of unsustainable consumption, leaving a trail of "waste colonialism" in its wake.