[notatoad]

the article does a poor job of selling the problem here, but the outrage is that companies encourage overconsumption in rich western countries by telling us things are recycled, and that it's okay to buy more stuff we don't need because it's recyclable. it's just greenwashing.

most of the shoes people put in donation bins aren't going to last long for their second owners, and people in indonesia don't have the same compunctions about throwing things in the trash as people in richer countries do. so all this is doing is shipping waste overseas so an indonesian can throw it in the garbage and it goes in an indonesian landfill instead of a singaporean landfill. they're laundering the waste so rich people can pretend they aren't throwing things in the trash.