WHERE NOT GOOD CLOTHES GO TO DIE — “It’s Like A Death Pit”
Fast Fashion’s Graveyard: Kantamanto Market, ACCRA, GHANA. An Environmental Crisis — A Touch of Hope.
KEY POINTS
About 10% of thrift store clothes are sold, with the balance ultimately making its way to markets, such as Ghana.
Organizations such as the Or Foundation are seeking solutions — in some cases, creating new garments or products from the waste.
Or has many supporters, and even SHEIN provided some support in 2022.
The secondhand clothing trade employs 30,000 people in Accra alone. Some of these workers are involved in repurposing and upcycling.
*SPOILER ALERT: SEE THE END OF THE ARTICLE FOR SOME HAPPY NEWS*
Dumping Grounds
If you’ve ever wondered where all the clothing junk goes, in particular, all that cheap polyester fast fashion, and countless other throwaway items, when they’re not purchased from Goodwill, or any number of secondhand stores, look no further than the dumping grounds of Ghana.
It doesn’t matter, it’s not in our backyard.. right?
The Or Foundation: “Ghana is one of the world's largest importers of secondhand clothing from the global north, with 15 million garments arriving every week.”
Many of those, according to The Guardian, are arriving from the UK. The clothes also arrive from Canada, the US, the Netherlands, China, Korea, and Australia.
What’s The Story?
The Or Foundation is removing an average of 20 tons of textile and plastic waste from the beach, on a weekly basis.
Each week, that same amount of ‘garbage’ is replenished, and a lot of the chaff — crews can only pickup so much refuse — ends up making its way to the Korle Lagoon — one of the most contaminated water bodies in the world.
Much of it ultimately ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. The lighter synthetics stay near the surface and the heavier garments sink to the bottom, where they impact aquatic life and ocean quality.
In the event of something catastrophic, such as a typhoon, garbage may be pushed out into the Mediterranean.
About 10% of the clothes that make their way to a thrift store are sold, with the balance being bought by for-profit aggregators.
These exporters have the clothes baled (traders pay about $150 a bale) and moved to foreign markets, such as Ghana.
Many of the garments that arrive in Accra, Ghana are low quality, polyester-based, and unsaleable.
It is a scarcity mindset: “I won’t fit in if I don’t get this dress, now!”
UC Berkeley professor Kate O'Neill contends it’s about figuring out a way to turn off the tap and lessen the production of fast fashion.
She asserts it’s also a change of mindset. If the necessary changes don’t happen, no amount of recycling will matter, because the net effect will be always be more garbage in than out.
Kantamanto Market
Once baled, the merchants send the secondhand clothes to Kantamanto market, an 18-acre covered site, located a mile from Jamestown beach, in Accra, Ghana.
Kantamanto market has become the legacy of 25 years of unregulated fast fashion.
It is the largest secondhand clothing market in the world.
The locals call the secondhand clothes “obroni wawu”, translated as: dead white man’s clothes.
The Guardian reports that 40% of what arrives at Kantamanto is deemed unsaleable, but neither the market, nor Ghana, have the resources to deal with the volumes of trash.
One hundred tons of garments leave Kantamanto daily and make their way to illegal tips, dumps, gutters, and drains.
Some of the clothing is burned, and a small percentage is taken by waste management.
Ultimately, much of the textile waste flows into the lagoon, and, the Atlantic Ocean, or, on to Accra’s own shores.
Beyond the garbage problem, the market is susceptible to fires and flooding, too.
Case in point, there was a large blaze in the Kantamanto market in January of this year, which decimated many of the stalls. The shanty-quality of the construction and lack of firebreaks leave the grounds susceptible to fires.
Shanty Towns & Dirty Beaches
The Guardian, about the beach cleanup:
Also, from The Guardian, about Old Fadama, a once-thriving community, and now a shanty town of 80,000 people, and an unsanctioned dump:
A part of the Or Foundation mission is the removal of waste.
Another part is clipping clothing tags from the debris so they can approach the “offending” brands about paying their fair share of “dues”.
Greenpeace has reported that the total number of garments produced is expected to rise to 200bn by 2030, from an estimated 100bn in 2014. They also stated that 89% of the garments in Ghana’s dumpsites contain synthetic materials.
Upcycling
It’s not all doom and gloom — amid the sea of garments, and all the garbage, is a group of designers working to make something good out of all of the chaff.
The Revival
One such entity is THE REVIVAL. The organization scours Kantamanto regularly for garments which they feel have legs for a new ‘embodiment’.
They collaborate with fashion students, local artisans, and activists to participate in the design and manufacture of new outfits and art, giving fresh life to something that had been destined for a trash heap.