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Susan Blumberg-Kason

Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, Adam Minter, Bloomsbury, 4/5 stars
Globalisation usually means manufacturing. But globalisation reaches into other realms, even waste disposal, as Adam Minter wrote in his debut book, Junkyard Planet.
In his new book, Secondhand, Minter investigates what happens to material goods we donate after we’re done using them. He travels throughout North America, Asia and Africa to explore how different countries reuse discarded items.
It turns out that many things are not quite what one might have expected. For example, people in developed countries often donate old books, clothes and other items from furniture to electronics to organisations such as Goodwill, which in turn sell them to raise funds for non-profit or charitable programmes.
However, many of these goods are in fact sold into second-hand markets in developing countries: a business opportunity, rather than a directly charitable exercise.

Minter also explores the subtleties of the billion-dollar market for second-hand goods in Asial
Because Japan, for example, has experienced a negative birth rate for several decades, when elderly Japanese die they often leave behind homes filled with junk but with no next of kin to sort through it: “What’s left behind is one of the world’s most aged societies, millions of homes filled with property accumulated during Japan’s boom years, and a dearth of heirs.”
One consequence is the rise of a new business called shukatsu, which helps people get their affairs in order before they pass away – if they have no heirs. One of the ways they prepare for the end is to seek consultants to help donate their personal belongings after they’re gone. Japan’s second-hand industry brought in US$16 billion in 2016.

China, on the other hand, is relatively new to consumerism and home to many of the factories that produce goods sold globally. Entrepreneurs in China have taken the second-hand industry to new levels not just in Asia, but around the world.
Interestingly, Minter finds that there isn’t a large market for second-hand goods in China or even in Singapore, which – like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – has witnessed a rising living standard while the birth rate has drastically declined.
Minter quotes a Singaporean second-hand bookseller: “In Chinese culture, there’s shame if you use second-hand. Means you’re not doing well … At Chinese New Year, it’s all about new clothes.”

When Minter visited Nogales, in Mexico just south of the Arizona border, he spoke with local merchants in second-hand markets, which are now also offering new – yet cheap – items. As a Mexican merchant explained, “New pushed used out a few years ago. Chinos moved in.”
This market in Nogales was filled with new clothes from China, usually cheaper yet of lower quality than used clothes that are more durable. Some of these new items were also knock-offs.
Minter is quick to place the onus for the low-quality clothes not on the Chinese, but on the Western clothing companies: “Initially, at least, China’s apparel industry manufactured to the standards set by foreign companies seeking cheaper factories. And those foreign companies were only doing what good companies always do: responding to customers.”
Chinese entrepreneurs have also reached Africa, where they sell traditional clothing for countries like Ghana at lower costs than local tailors and manufacturers.
China is the world’s largest exporter of new clothes, and it has become the fifth largest exporter of used clothes. But as Minter explains: “Because China’s export data is often flawed, or distorted by smuggling, the numbers could be much higher.”

No matter what its rank in the world of used clothing exports, Chinese entrepreneurs don’t always offer items of interest to Africans. In other words, Africans don’t want clothes that are cheaper yet of lower quality. So if they have a choice between new Chinese goods or used items of better quality, they will choose the latter.
Accessibility to used goods in Africa is a problem, though. Minter explains that old laws – protecting developing countries from hazardous waste originating from the developed world – have stalled the free flow of second-hand items like computer monitors and televisions, which are classified as hazardous waste even though they don’t pose environmental threats.
Until these laws change, loads of second-hand electronics are held in limbo because it’s difficult for exporters to send them to markets where they’re wanted, like Africa.
Minter admits that he, too, has done his “own share of accumulating over the years” and that he’s been able to let go of some of the stuff he no longer uses, but not all of it – yet.
He can’t promise readers that they will successfully be able to part with things they don’t need any more, but he assures that “they will find a surprising world where what’s old becomes new again, over and over, and the desire to profit from castoffs creates innovation and livelihoods – all over the world at all hours of the day.
“Finding it is a treasure hunt, one that anyone can join.”
Asian Review of Books


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Adam Minter travels the globe following used and donated goods to their final destinations
He looks at how attitudes to used products differ in Asia, the US, Europe and Africa



Adam Minter travels the globe following used and donated goods to their final destinations. He looks at how attitudes to used products differ in Asia, the US, Europe and Africa.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


Review

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Adam Minter travels the globe following used and donated goods to their final destinations He looks at how attitudes to used products differ in Asia, the US, Europe and Africa

Adam Minter travels the globe following used and donated goods to their final destinations

He looks at how attitudes to used products differ in Asia, the US, Europe and Africa