Fast fashion undermines France's historic secondhand sector
Sorting ever more, only to find ever less: In the 2,000-square-meter sorting warehouse of the Emmaus center in Ivry-sur-Seine, large gray plastic bins were lined up in rows and overflowing with clothes. That morning's sorting, as on every Wednesday, was becoming increasingly difficult due to a massive influx of clothing. "It's become unbearable. We're still 40 people, but the volumes we receive just keep growing," said Philippe Garrec, head of the Parisian network of Emmaus warehouses. "How far will this go?" he wondered, as the Senate voted on Tuesday, June 10, to pass a revised version of the anti-fast-fashion law, which specifically targets Chinese online fashion platforms such as Shein and Temu.
The situation is similar for Emilie Morand, head of the Relais Val de Seine sorting center: "All our stock for the year is already full; the risk of a bottleneck is real," she warned. Of the 120,000 metric tons of waste collected at the center each year, only 80,000 metric tons can be sorted due to lack of space and resources.
The problem stems from the sheer number of fast fashion items – the low-priced clothes that consumers wear only briefly and which have proliferated in France with the rise of Chinese online sales platforms like Shein and Temu. Driven by a logic of overconsumption, these short-lived garments wear out as quickly as they're bought and are quickly donated to secondhand charities and collection centers.
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