Dead White Man’s Clothes
The fast fashion industry in the West is having a profound impact on the people and environment of Ghana, especially in the capital Accra. Over the past two decades, Ghana’s “Obroni Wawu” or dead white clothing trade has flourished. Most of the garments end up in Kantamanto Market, where more than 15 million used garments arrive every week.
The clothes are second-hand and come from Western countries such as the US, UK and Australia. They started at a retail store, were bought, worn a few times, probably put away, and donated to charity. If charities don’t think they’re worth it, they’re sold to exporters. Packed into bags containing 200 different garments, they arrive in Accra and are delivered to their new owners.
These new owners are Ghanaian importers who resell the products throughout the country and much of Africa. While this has created thousands of new jobs and opportunities, it has also created many concerns, including a looming major environmental disaster.
When importers buy garments in bulk, there is no way to check the quality of the finished garments. In recent years, the situation of incoming clothing has been deteriorating. Many have holes, cracks, tears and sweat stains and are considered worthless junk. After the importer sorts the goods, other wholesalers and small retailers buy the products and sell them to remote villages.
The amount of clothing thrown away is staggering. Six million garments or 160 tons of textile waste are processed every week. You can quickly run out of landfill space. The result was a lot of clothing clogging the city’s sewers, causing floods and being washed into the sea and beaches. Rows of clothing can often be found tangled and buried in the sand, up to 30 feet long, rolling along the shore. Much clothing was also burned, and black smoke billowing in the skies over Accra was common.
Importers complain about the condition of the clothes they receive. It’s an offense to them, it feels like they’re being treated like a giant trash can. In the West, no one thinks about where old clothes go and what to do with them. The truth is, they end up in some of the most disenfranchised areas of the world, where citizens have to live with all the garbage and are blamed for being the biggest polluters.
So who is to blame and what can we do about it? Activists have accused big fashion houses and fast fashion chains of producing hundreds of designs that are only worn a few times. The fashion industry also produces up to 40% of demand. Maybe it’s time for all of us to think about the quality of our donations, but more importantly how we consume fashion.
