Shiza Aslam
ISWA YPG Leadership Team / Coordinator ISWA Working Group on Recycling and Waste Minimisation
In May, I had the privilege of participating in the IFAT Eurasia 2025 held in Istanbul — a vibrant convergence of environmental innovation and industrial and circular economy champions. While the event as a whole was a remarkable showcase of progress in waste and water management technologies, for me, the most thought-provoking and timely discussions unfolded during the two-day ISWA Conference on “Second-Hand is Circular: The Global Second-Hand Clothing and Textiles Sector.”
As someone working at the intersection of circular economy and social equity, moderating and presenting in these sessions wasn’t just an academic experience — it was personal. The textile sector, often sidelined in climate discussions, emerged here as a central actor in the circular economy transition.
This gathering wasn’t just another discussion on circularity — it was a rare, honest space where messy realities were unpacked, power dynamics questioned, and the human element of the second-hand trade brought to the forefront.
A Sector Under Pressure — And in Transition
The sessions opened with an honest acknowledgement: the global second-hand clothing and textile trade is under immense pressure. From changing European regulations to import bans and geo-economic shifts, panellists from across continents shared how their local realities are being shaped by international policy, fast fashion waste, and logistical bottlenecks.
The discussions explained that second-hand clothing doesn’t simply disappear — it travels. It gets unpacked, sorted, repaired, resold, or dumped, often in places with little say in how the system is governed. Panellists added powerful testimonies from Turkey, Guatemala, Italy, Tanzania, the EU, and Ghana, respectively, pointing to the global nature of textile flows and the need for ethical governance across borders.
What made this conference so unique was how these complexities were centred, not sidelined. With panellists emphasising the agency of actors across the value chain — exporters, sorters, waste pickers, and local retailers — all working to recover value, reduce waste, and create livelihoods.
What many in the sector know but often struggle to say out loud: there are blurry, wobbly lines everywhere in the second-hand textile trade. As David put it, “quality is not objective or fixed” — it is shaped by the destination context, the local demand, and the economic and social value attached to garments that might otherwise be dismissed as “waste” elsewhere.
What the sessions made painfully clear is this: circularity cannot be designed in Brussels and simply implemented in Nairobi or Karachi. If it doesn’t consider local realities — the blurry, uncomfortable, hard-to-classify parts — it risks becoming another form of top-down control disguised as sustainability.
Attending this forum and conference reminded me that circularity isn’t a perfect loop — it’s a living, breathing system full of human decisions, cultural nuance, and unequal power. We don’t need to simplify it to act on it. Acknowledging the messiness might be the first step to meaningful change.
