Around 80% of Mozambicans buy second-hand clothes, which mainly come from Europe, preferring them to new ones that are made in Asia and which last less, and there are around a million families that make a living from this market, according to a representative of the sector.
In an interview with the Lusa news agency in Lisbon, the coordinator of the Business Development Centre of the Beira Commercial Association, Fernando Hin Júnior, described as “gigantic” this market in Mozambique.
“Mozambique absorbs 1.7 per cent of imports worldwide,” he said, indicating that the circular economy “has gained a much greater dynamic” in the country of late, with many traders making a living from second-hand clothing. A large proportion (18%) is imported from Europe as well as much from other regions.
Although it is known for its traditional clothing such as the capulana, a kind of wrap, the country in 2023 imported 39,320 tonnes of used clothing, making it the second-largest importer of these items among members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), after Tanzania.
Hin Júnior explained that these clothes, many of them donated and others bought, arrive in Mozambique via the Port of Beira, where they go to the city’s sorting centre, which is run by a non-profit organisation, ADPP.
This organisation, an associate of the centre coordinated by Hin Júnior, sorts, prepares and packs the clothes. Retailers then buy these bales for resale in open-air markets in local areas.
“Those who sell obviously earn some money to support their families,” he said. “It’s also an opportunity for Mozambican families, because most of them can’t afford to buy new clothes.”
According to Hin Júnior, the trade in these used clothes means that products are cheaper and more diverse, allowing families to save a little money for other expenses, such as health and education.
Asked about possible environmental damage, he said that in Mozambique there is really no such problem, as the country “has a culture of reusing second-hand clothes.”
He gave an example: “When second-hand clothes arrive at the sorting centres, only around five percent are low-quality clothes… but [this] is recycled by local cleaning industries.”
The rest is sold and can also be transformed by the tailors that exist in these local and open-air markets.
“When consumers no longer need the clothes they bought at these markets, they pass them on to family and friends,” he said. “There is a culture of reuse [leaving] only the waste that results from the tailors’ work.”
In Mozambique – where each person consumes an average of 1.3 kilograms of clothes a year, less than the 5kg per head in the rest of the continent and 15kg in Europe – there are no local textile industries, so second-hand clothes do not undermine a local sector.
The real alternative, said Hin Júnior, is “fast fashion” – made with synthetic fibres in Asia, but which could take over the market for second-hand clothes from Europe, due to new rules resulting from the European Union’s Waste Shipment Regulation and the Basel Convention.
“Mozambicans prefer European clothes, which have better quality and last longer,” he emphasised.
Africa is the largest second-hand clothing market in the world, absorbing almost 35% of output, with EU member states and the UK being the main exporters.
Lusa