Crisis with old clothing collectors: Bremen fights against flood of garbage and almost fashion!

Crisis with old clothing collectors: Bremen fights against flood of garbage and almost fashion!

Bremen, Deutschland - in Bremen, the sight of overcrowded old clothing containers and garbage bags has long been part of the cityscape. Is that due to the increased amount of collected clothing or the serious organizational problems? The company SOEX, which previously made the containers regularly empty, no longer commissioned the Bremen city cleaning in October 2024. This not only emphasized the containers sporadically, but also 20 to 25 of a total of 330 containers had to be broken down, which also tightened the situation.

The Interzero (IZ) Circular Textiles GmbH took over SOEX in May 2024 and the city cleaning now hopes that this new company will get the problems under control. It is sought to reset the degraded containers until autumn. But the concerns are great: illegal garbage deposits around the containers could become a serious problem. Of more often, not only old clothes end up, but also garbage in the containers. The proportion of garbage has now reached sad 15%, which significantly increases the cost of disposal.

The influence of fast fashion

The overconsum and the spread of fast fashion chains are, according to Thomas Ahlmann from "Fair rating", the difficulties in the old clothing collection are decisive. Ahlmann warned that the cheap new goods in particular endanger the structure of the second-hand market. In order to stabilize the situation in the long term, cities and municipalities should consider lifting fees for the old clothing collection.

In the fight against the market flaut, there are also non -profit collectors such as the inner mission, the German Red Cross and Caritas in Bremen. These organizations play a central role in the old clothing collection and are therefore dependent on the quality of the clothing collected. But the situation is anything but simple: As new reports show, the quality of the old clothes is falling, as more and more bad and less reliable clothing ends up in the containers. This is also related to the changed consumption behavior, as people tend to buy ever cheaper clothing that often only have a short lifespan.

old clothing disposal in the crisis

The market for second-hand goods has changed dramatically; The amount of textiles collected has even tripled. However, this is not a reason to be happy: the price for newly produced clothing is often lower than that for second-hand goods, which puts customers under great pressure. Thomas Fischer from BVSE states that politics should temporarily do without parking fees for the containers in order to defuse the situation. Ahlmann also speaks for an extended product responsibility for textiles so that manufacturers will pay for the collection, sorting and recycling of their products in the future.

Soex, which formerly sorted 100,000 tons of old clothes annually and sells usable clothing, especially to Eastern Europe and Africa, is now faced with financial challenges. According to the managing director Fred Ponath, adapting the business model is essential. While unusable clothing is often sold as an insulation material, this remains profitable, but the solution in the long run.

The local old clothing collection faces major challenges. The positive aspects such as well -preserved items of clothing, shoes, hats, hats and bed linen that belong in the collection are overlaid by the increased amount of garbage in the containers and the corona -related decline. Even wet, heavily dirty or damaged clothing has lost nothing here.

It remains to be seen whether the new measures of city cleaning in Bremen will be fruited and whether the second-hand market can stabilize again. The challenges are huge. Only through close cooperation between the collectors, politics and the citizens can it be possible to bring the old clothing collection in Bremen to a course of success. Who would have thought that old clothes can be found out of responsibility and efficiency?

Further details on the situation of the old clothing disposal can be found in the articles of Butenunbinnen , mdr and Consumer protection forum .