By Frank Sekyere, Programs Manager for Upcycle It Ghana
Every morning, millions of garments are pulled from racks across Europe and the United States – purchased with excitement, worn a handful of times (if at all), and then discarded in favour of the next trend. But where do those discarded clothes go after being cast aside? Many second-hand clothes travel halfway across the world to Africa. Here, they meet a cruel fate, overwhelming the local markets, poisoning the environment, and exacerbating the global textile waste crisis. This global trade is marketed as charity, but the reality is much darker: it perpetuates a vicious cycle of waste colonialism with severe environmental and social consequences.
Kantamanto Market in Accra, Ghana, stands as a ground zero for the textile waste crisis. Each week, approximately 15 million garments discarded by the Global North arrive in shipping containers, labelled as donations or charitable goods to help the less fortunate and promote reuse. Yet, EU data from 2019, which includes the UK, shows that Ghana was the second-largest destination for Europe’s used-clothing exports by volume, behind only Tunisia.
The truth is that 40% of the clothing sent to Ghana is waste, unsellable and of such poor quality and often damaged, that they can’t be resold. This waste clogs drainage systems, inundates landfills and pollutes the environment. These garments were intended to be a source of aid, but in reality, they are nothing more than a burden.
Textile waste – a plastic-dominant, toxic-saturated waste stream containing complex chemical mixtures – often exhibits characteristics consistent with hazardous or other wastes under the Basel Convention. In Ghana, these textiles are either burnt or left to decompose in landfills, releasing toxic chemicals into the soil and air and damaging the local environment. The smoke from burning textiles contains harmful substances like carbon monoxide, dioxins, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which have been linked to respiratory problems and other health issues in local communities.
Consider the story of Beatrice, a fish seller from Jamestown Beach in Accra. She walks down the shore every morning, carefully picking through the waste that washes ashore, often finding her catch mixed with discarded textiles. “The waste disturbs us,” she says. “When fishermen go fishing, they come back with fish mixed with plastic and textile waste. We have to remove all the garbage before selling it.”Beatrice’s story is not unique; it is one shared by countless others in Accra. Textile waste has infiltrated every part of their lives, from their markets to their beaches and likely even them, through contamination of the food chain.
Yet, despite these daily struggles, there is hope. Organisations like Upcycle It Ghana are working tirelessly to turn this waste into a resource by training artisans and young people to repurpose discarded textiles into bags, accessories, and even upcycled fashion. However, it is important to recognise that, despite these efforts, the growing volume of textile waste means end-of-life solutions remain severely limited.
Less than 1% of textile waste is recycled into new clothing, while most materials, especially synthetic and blended fabrics, still have no effective recovery options. And even handling these materials could be harmful to workers because post-consumer polyester contains chemicals from dyes, finishes, detergents, coatings, flame retardants, microplastics and other additives.
At the centre of the textile waste crisis is market distortion, the relentless flood of artificially cheap plastic feedstocks like polyester, acrylic and nylon into the fashion industry. These synthetics, derived from fossil fuels and highly subsidised, are now so inexpensive that they outprice natural fibres like cotton, wool and linen.
The result is a race to the bottom, brands cut costs to maximise profits and compete against cheap suppliers who often turn to these plastic fabrics. Yet the inherently low quality means they are designed for disposability rather than longevity. Garments are produced cheaply, worn only a few times and then given away. Studies show that the average time clothing is worn before disposal has declined, with as many as one in five fast-fashion products discarded after no more than 10 wears. A stark contrast to the clothing of previous generations, which was designed to last.
This throwaway culture is not confined to wealthy countries. As discarded clothing is shipped to developing countries like Ghana, the cycle continues. In Kenya, it is estimated that 55,500 to 74,000 tonnes of textile waste are generated each year due to the flood of second-hand clothing imports. The poor quality of many of these garments, a direct result of the fast-fashion model, means they are often not reusable, contributing to the growing problem of textile waste.
This situation is compounded by the fact that local industries in these countries are unable to compete with the cheap, low-quality textiles flooding their markets. In Ghana, local textile industries have been forced to close or scale back, unable to compete with the influx of second-hand clothing. This leaves the country with a double burden: it imports waste and also loses out on the potential benefits of a thriving domestic textile industry.
The solution to this crisis is not simple, but it starts with accountability and addressing the root cause: overproduction.
Fast fashion brands must be held accountable for their role in this crisis. Brands that profit from the overproduction of cheap garments must take responsibility for the waste they create. There is an urgent need for binding national, regional, and global agreements to support Extended Producer Responsibility and hold producers legally accountable for the resources used, emissions generated, and waste produced across the entire lifecycle of clothing.
Another important step in addressing the textile waste crisis is ending the export of cheap, low-quality second-hand clothing to Africa and other destination countries. Countries in the Global North must stop using developing nations as dumping grounds and instead invest in local, meaningful solutions to manage their waste responsibly at source. Only clean, sorted material destined for legitimate reuse markets should be traded.
As the Basel Convention’s fifteenth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG-15) in June considers options to address used textiles and textile waste within its work programme, there is a clear opportunity to take action to close this gap. Textile waste should be subject to the same baseline controls as other polluting and hazardous waste streams, including classification as “other waste” under Annex II of the Convention, making it subject to mandatory Prior Informed Consent procedures and additional control measures. This will preserve legitimate reuse and recycling markets while ensuring that mixed, contaminated or low-quality textile waste is properly controlled.
Consumers also need to be educated on the environmental impact of their clothing choices. By promoting sustainable fashion practices, such as buying quality second-hand or investing in durable garments, we can reduce demand for fast fashion and its waste.
Governments should be proactive in implementing transparency measures to track the routes, destinations, and fate of used clothes, and in enforcing quality checks at their ports for second-hand clothes, ensuring that only suitable garments are imported for legitimate reuse and recovery. A strict eco-design and detox strategy must be enforced by banning hazardous chemicals and phasing out fossil-fuel-based synthetic fibres in textile production and final products to shift to a truly circular, sustainable model.
The global textile waste crisis is a daunting challenge, but it’s one we can solve, together. Real progress begins with the choices we make every day: buying less, choosing better, reusing more, and refusing to be trapped by the cycle of fast fashion. The time to act is now, because every conscious decision, no matter how small, helps build a more sustainable and just future!
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