By Arianna Kaplan
Fast fashion continues its lifecycle abroad, burned as toxic fuel for public bathhouses in Accra, Ghana.
Coastal pollution littering a beach in Accra, Ghana, with buildings in the background. Ana Kenk. Pexels.
If you’re a consumer in the virtual world, chances are that you’ve been tempted by an ad for a low-cost item from a fast fashion company such as Shein, Temu, or in-person in stores such as Zara or H&M. You enter your credit card details, the item arrives at your doorstep, and it’s…garbage. It’s made with poor-quality materials, likely polyester, acrylic or some other synthetic fiber made almost entirely of plastic. Instead of throwing it away, perhaps you donate the item, thinking that someone else would want it. Except, they don’t. No one does, and thrift shops are overrun with poor-quality, cheap fast fashion products. They’re so overrun, in fact, that only about 10% to 30% of donated clothing is actually kept and sold domestically. The solution to this overabundance of textile waste? Donations are shipped abroad to global secondary markets, primarily in the Global South, such as Ghana’s Kantamanto Market.
Ghana imports about 15 million items of secondhand clothes each week. In 2021, Ghana imported $214 million in used clothes, making it the world’s largest importer. The second-hand clothes come from countries such as the US, the UK, China and others, which sell their thrift-store and deadstock wares to exporters and importers who then sell higher-quality items to Europe and lower-quality items to vendors in places such as Kantamanto. As the fast fashion market has grown, the volume of clothing resold has also grown, while the quality has gone down.
Nearby Accra, in parts of Old Fadama, the largest informal settlement in Ghana, there is an everlasting aroma of smoke, a sign that a public washhouse is nearby. In Old Fadama, home to at least 80,000 people, many of whom have migrated from northern Ghana where the climate crisis has made farming unsustainable, these washhouses are a necessity. This is how many residents of Old Fadama and similar areas have access to hot water for bathing and other hygiene needs, heated by barrels of water above an open hearth fueled by burning textile waste. Many of the clothes brought to Kantamanto Market are not sellable: they’re either too stained, damaged, dirty or poor quality to be resold, and are either discarded in dumping grounds or used for fuel. The resource is practically inexhaustible, but the problem is that the clothes, and their fumes, are poison.
When a consumer gives clothes to charity, and they aren’t in the 20% of clothes sold locally, unsold donations are sold to for-profit aggregators who package the clothing in bales for export. Traders pay between $120 and $200 per bale, and sell or upcycle what they can. However, an estimated 100 tons leave the market daily. Around 30% is collected by the city, but the remaining 70% of textile waste ends up in illegal dumping grounds, ditches, drains or washed up in the heavily polluted Korle Lagoon, the Odaw River or the ocean, causing environmental damage. In fact, there is so much textile waste that ten legal dumps near Accra closed between 2010 and 2020 because they reached capacity.
However, people still need access to hygiene and water, and some textiles have been converted into fuel to heat the bathhouses. In an investigation done by Greenpeace International, researchers collected air samples and found the ambient air of the three public baths was contaminated with numerous dangerous chemical substances, many of them far above European safety standards. Some of the chemicals consisted of known carcinogenic compounds such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, exposing workers, patrons, and nearby residents to carcinogens, mutagens and other chemicals toxic to reproductive health.
Some more chemicals detected in the study were styrene, toxic to human reproduction; phenol, a mutagen; three isomers of cresol, a possible carcinogen, while the soot samples taken detected hazardous levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Nearly all of the discarded fabrics burned were made with plastic, a non-biodegradable substance which breaks down into microplastics but never decomposes, exposing those in the surrounding areas to smoke filled with microplastics and contaminating the soil, water, air and the food web.
Despite posing a risk to the workers, residents, and visitors of the area the second-hand reselling market accounts for 60,000 jobs in Ghana due to the country’s colonial past, when British rule made local economies reliant on foreign goods. The problem isn’t with Ghana: it lies with the consumers and companies who purchase and manufacture the products.
The consequences of buying fast fashion for the more removed consumer seem minimal: a few dollars spent and a trip to Goodwill or your trash can, and the problem of a poor-quality garment is solved. But when you track the lifecycle of these plastic garments, the reality is a city and its surrounding waterways buried under textile debris.
Solomon Noi, part of the delegation and direction of waste management for Accra Metropolitan Assembly, told The Guardian that it was impossible for the city to cope with the volume of market waste.
There is a movement to stop the burning of toxic materials used as fuel, but its efficacy is reliant on the polluters, the large fashion companies, complying with demands for regulation of their products. The main movement against the burning is activism, aiming to raise awareness about the waste.
Climate activist Yvette Yaa Jondau Tetteh completed a 450-kilometer swim across the Volta River, backed by The Or Foundation, where she drew media attention to her athletic feat while collecting water and air samples to build a scientific case for Ghanaian policymakers to see the effects of pollution and legally restrict the burning and open dumping of textiles.
Also in partnership with The Or Foundation, Accra’s waste management department organized a team of volunteers under the moniker of “Kanta Keepers” to separate textile waste into sellable garments and non-sellable ones requiring sustainable disposal. The Kanta Keepers have successfully removed 18 tons of textile waste from the market site in Accra, as well as from beaches, waterways and the ocean.
So, the next time you’re tempted by a low cost for an item from a fast fashion website, think again. The poor working conditions and environmental toll notwithstanding, your cheap item isn’t any more desirable in a thrift shop, nor exported to a secondhand market. At best, it will be repurposed for another use. At worst, it will become a direct pollutant to the water, air and earth.
GET INVOLVED:
The Or Foundation is a registered non-profit organization determined to work through education, research, and direct action to create alternatives to the overproduction and overconsumption models dominant in the fashion industry. Based in Accra, Ghana, The Or Foundation aims to create a Justice-Led Circular Economy: an economic model that combines circularity, which includes waste management, extending product lifespans and material sustainability, with human rights and social justice.
They are calling on clothing companies to disclose the volume of garments in production each year and reduce that number by 40%. The Foundation’s Stop Waste Colonialism campaign also advocates for global fashion brands and clothing producers to help pay for waste management to support communities bearing the environmental costs of textile overproduction.
Arianna Kaplan
Arianna is in her final year at Scripps College, part of the Claremont College consortium in the Los Angeles area. She writes in a variety of genres but most enjoys creative nonfiction and place-rooted narrative. Writing at Catalyst, along with The Student Life Newspaper offers a perfect outlet for her zest for life, and she's beyond excited to be here. In the future, she plans on pursuing a career in journalism.