[davidodio]

“Costs” often ignore externalities like environmental damage and inequality. Landfilling or dumping plastic may be cheaper now, but it shifts the true cost — centuries of pollution —onto vulnerable communities today. There is a reason the clothing dumps are in Ghana and Chile, rather than wealthier nations like the US or Germany.

If the price to companies profiting from plastics included exteralities I could possibly agree with you but as it stands these costs are normally paid by disadvantaged individuals or marginalized ecosystems.

[murderfs]

The reason the clothing dumps exist is greenwashing. If we weren't pretending that reusing clothing is meaningful to the environment, we'd just burn the clothing locally.

[Qwertious]

You'd think that cotton could be upcycled - the Soviet Union notably upcycled cotton, by turning it into the duraplast (made of compressed heated old cotton and plastic resin) that made up the body panels of their Trabant cars.

Of course, the Soviet Union doing something doesn't automatically mean it's economical or sensible, but at least in premise it should be useful for something.

[lupire]

Why don't the greenwashers greenwash burning clothes locally?