Dutch Mountains; Encounters on Post-Consumer Textile Sorting Trails in Rotterdam

During my Master’s fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology I followed traces of second-hand textiles in Rotterdam. Dutch Mountains, the title of my Master’s thesis refers to the rapidly growing but rather hidden accumulation of clothing waste in the Netherlands. Dutch inhabitants consume 46 clothes per person a year on average; twice as much as 20 years ago. However, what happens after people discard clothes in a textile container appears to be hidden from the public eye. I followed trails of textile abundance which led me to two thrifting companies and their employees, who attend to Rotterdam’s second hand clothes. At the Textile Sorting Center in Rotterdam Waalhaven, over 55 employees – distanced from the labor market – take care of sorting textiles and footwear discarded in Rotterdam’s textile containers. They are mediated through programs facilitated by the municipality of Rotterdam. Policies of creating jobs while building a circular economy seem to have many advantages. However, these policies neglect the consequences of exporting second-hand clothes beyond Dutch borders. Exports to countries like Ghana not only shift environmental burdens but also alter the social fabric of those societies.

The outcomes of my anthropological field research offer a non-linear exploration of Textile Sorting Practices in Rotterdam, inspired by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). I immersed myself by sorting, categorizing, and prizing textiles with employees of the Textile Sorting Center exploring transitions of human and non-human actants, such as objects of textiles, procedures, abundance, triggers, and hope. Additionally, I took my pencils and sketchbook with me to draw. I invite you to follow traces of discarded textiles in Rotterdam and accompany me through ‘Dutch Mountains’ as a multi-layered landscape of Rotterdam’s textile stories intertwined with global realities.