How the West's 'hand-me-downs' are polluting Ghana

By Sylvia Chebet

Ghana's environment is unwittingly suffering the consequences of what the West fashionably calls "spring cleaning".

Every week, 15 million pieces of second-hand clothing packed in nearly a hundred 40ft containers arrive in the West African nation from the Global North, mainly through the Port of Tema.

In 2022, Ghana imported 121,934 tonnes of discarded clothing, locally referred to as "obroni wawu". The term, which literally translates to "dead white man's clothes", is probably less disparaging than the impact of this dumping.

According to a study by Greenpeace Africa, Ghana is the world's second-largest importer of used clothing after Pakistan, with 5.1% of the global market share.

Hand-me-downs may be a lesson in sustainability and a household tradition worldwide, but what Ghana receives from the UK every year is more than a deluge of second-hand clothing.

Globally, the top three exporters of used clothing by volume between 2010 and 2020 were the US, China, Germany and the UK.

Most of the used clothes that arrive in Ghana are taken to Accra's sprawling Kantamanto Market, the largest second-hand market in the country with around 5,000 stalls and 30,000 people engaged in the trade.

Difficult business

Every day, sellers hustle through the narrow market alleys with bales of used clothing, most of which turn out to be practically unusable.

"The bad ones are more than the good ones," Greenpeace Africa quotes an elderly female trader as saying.

The organisation's investigation reveals that nearly half of the imported second-hand clothes don't find buyers and end up clogging ecosystems.

Piles of unsold clothes from Kantamanto Market, estimated to be at least half a million pieces annually, are dumped in open spaces and other sites in Accra or further afield along the countryside.

According to Greenpeace Africa's report titled "Fast Fashion, Slow Poison: The Toxic Textile Crisis in Ghana", water bodies, beaches, and vast swathes of land are "choking with textile waste".

Plastic mountains

Greenpeace researchers established that nearly half of the discarded clothes are made of synthetic fibres, including polyester, nylon and acrylic. None of these has any resale value.

The researchers also discovered that textile waste was used as fuel in public baths like Old Fadama, an informal settlement in Accra.

Unbeknown to the operators, the thick plumes of black smoke from these public wash-houses contaminate the air with noxious chemicals, many far above globally instituted safety standards.

Worse, some of these compounds are carcinogenic, such as benzene, poly aromatic hydrocarbons and phenol, which is also mutagenic (causing mutations).

Research teams also found styrene, which is toxic and impedes human reproductory functions.

Infrared tests on clothing waste collected from Kantamanto Market and dumping grounds show that almost all items are non-biodegradable.

Toxic recycling

Recycled polyester is usually made from waste polyethene terephthalate (PET) bottles, which means that the journey of plastic into the environment is delayed rather than prevented.

Within Accra, unsold second-hand clothing is taken to any of the several large and growing informal dumpsites, including the towering mountain of trash that rises on the edge of the Odaw river at Old Fadama.

The impact of years of accumulated textile waste is visible on the "plastic beaches" lining Accra's coastline and the shores of several coastal cities across the continent.

In some places, the layers reveal the history of dumping, like geological strata.

"Over time, the tides wash over the textiles on the beach so that they become embedded and even buried in the sand, creating long tentacles of textile waste which reach down beneath the sea's surface, where they continue to break down and contaminate the marine food web," says the Greenpeace study.

The study mentions that 0.5 million tonnes of microplastic fibres are released into the oceans yearly from washing synthetic textiles, accounting for 35% of primary microplastics released globally.

According to the conservation organisation WWF, the textile sector contributes about 92 million tonnes of waste globally every year.

Responsible fashion

"This report is a wake-up call," says Greenpeace Africa's Pan-African plastics lead, Hellen Dena.

"The toxic waste dumped in Ghana is not just an environmental issue; it is a stark example of environmental injustice recklessly carried out by the Global North."

Environmentalists on the continent believe the problem is rooted in neocolonialism, where the Western nations see Ghana and other African countries – including Kenya, Tanzania and Tunisia – as dumping grounds.

"Fashion brands and governments must take immediate responsibility for the damage their waste is causing in countries like Ghana," says Dena.

Ghana needs more landfill space amidst a lack of adequate waste management infrastructure to cope with the volume of waste.

Greenpeace has called for a ban on exporting unusable clothing and textile waste from the Global North, setting up customs infrastructures, and a system of prior consent involving the local authorities.

Polluter-pays principle

To get brands and regulators in the Global North to realise the devastating impact of fast fashion in Ghana and elsewhere, Greenpeace mobilised locals in and around Kantamanto Market to collect some of the used clothes being thrown away.

In one week, they loaded 4.6 tonnes of clothes into a 20ft container, which was shipped back to Germany.

During Berlin Fashion Week in February 2024, the container with the message "Return to Sender" stood at the Brandenburg Gate.

So, will this bold message to the fashion industry and governments to take responsibility for the dangerous problem they have created bear fruit? That remains to be seen.

WWF, on its part, says a shift toward a "circular textile future" is necessary to preserve the future of the planet and the textile industry.

"In a circular textile system, all textiles are designed for durability, responsibly manufactured from sustainably sourced raw or recycled materials, frequently reused, repaired when needed, and recycled at end-of-life — the opposite of a linear, take-make-waste fast fashion business model," it points out.