Ghana: Piles of Waste Due to Fast Fashion
Tons of second-hand clothing arrive daily at Ghana’s Kantamanto Market. Clothing traders import goods primarily from Europe and the USA. However, about 40 percent of these second-hand clothes are unusable, ending up in illegal waste dumps and polluting beaches and seas. Author: Rahel Osterwalder Tuesday, 15.10.2024, 01:00 AM A brown leather jacket sticks out from a massive pile of textile waste. It has reached the end of its product life and is rotting in an illegal dump in Accra, Ghana’s capital. A brown leather jacket is rotting on the garbage mountain By SRF The jacket symbolizes a fashion system that has spiraled out of control. This is the final destination of the global fast fashion industry. While the exact path of the jacket can’t be traced, it most likely originates from the Global North, from used clothing collections in Europe or North America, imported by Ghanaian traders. Kantamanto Market — The Heart of the Second-Hand Trade Located in the middle of Accra is Kantama...