“The dustbin of the West”: this is how the Old Fadama district in Accra, the capital of Ghana, is nicknamed. In this slum, one of the most polluted in the world, around 100,000 people live in extreme poverty, at the foot of a mountain of waste. Plastic, leftover food, but above all layers of used clothing piled up about twenty meters high. These come from China, the United States, Europe… from the global second-hand clothes business.
Indeed, more than half of the old clothes that we deposit in containers to be recycled are actually resold abroad, mainly in Africa. And Ghana is one of Africa’s leading importers of second-hand clothes… The country of 32 million people sees 800 million second-hand items arrive every year… and 160 tons of textile waste every day .
“Obroni wawu” or “the clothes of dead white men”
At Accra’s Kantamanto market, the local second-hand temple, vendors rail against white people, who “only bring trash“. For these garments, called “obroni wawu“(“the clothes of dead white men”) in memory of an old belief, seem always more numerous, and their quality less and less good. Unsold items are exploding, and Ghana does not know what to do with them.
During the rainy season, rubbish is drained from landfills or carried down sewers to the sea. of intertwined rubbish – clothing, fishing nets, plastic… – thrown up by the sea. Impressive images were made last spring by a member of The Or Foundation.
The “fast fashion” in charge
This NGO, which “works in the areas of environmental justice, education and fashion development” and “acts in favor of circular fashion”, was founded by an American, Liz Ricketts. According to her, the fashion industry is responsible for this pollution, in particular “fast fashion” which always produces more. “There are simply too many clothes in circulation in the world, she warns. It goes beyond Ghana: the Kantamanto market and the beach here only make visible a problem that is in fact all over the world.”
Excerpt from “Textile: the hill of shame”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on October 6, 2022.
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