Your fast-fashion hauls will pollute Africa’s beaches for years – second-hand shops cannot keep up

Shoppers are buying far more clothes and discarding far more – and the charity sector is forced to dispose of textile waste it cannot reuse in a variety of ways
Much of it ends up in African countries like Ghana, polluting its seas, rivers and forests ‘for decades or even centuries to come’, activist says

Fashion

Melissa Twigg

Published: 7:15pm, 4 Oct 2022

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When putting yet another item in an already overstuffed wardrobe feels all but impossible, you know it is time to Marie Kondo your clothes.

Some of our cast-offs we sell online; the rest we take to charity shops – and after we have dropped them off, we walk away with the satisfaction of knowing we have done something good.

Except that it is a lot more complicated than that.

The circularity of charity-sector fashion worked well in the days when people tended to buy well-made, durable clothing that had a proper resale value. Today, for all the talk of the planet-saving properties of buying second-hand, the market is less suited to it.

Burned clothes in the province of Alicante in Spain. The rise of fast fashion means customers are purchasing far more and therefore discarding far more. Photo: Shutterstock

That is largely because of the rise of fast fashion; customers are purchasing far more and therefore discarding far more. According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, the number of times a garment was worn by people in Western countries declined by 36 per cent over the past 15 years, while the number of garments bought by the average consumer has more than doubled over the same period.

The result is that the charity sector is now in charge of disposing of vast amounts of textile waste, which it is forced to do in a variety of ways – few of which are good for the planet.

The price of fast fashion – and what is being done about it

In Britain, for example, only about 20 per cent of donations can be resold in second-hand stores – mostly because the items in question are too soiled, too damaged to be used or too cheap to be of value.

A further 10 per cent are either sent to recycling hubs, where they are turned into reusable fabrics that smaller brands and major players like Marks & Spencer can buy, or they are sent into the building industry and used as insulation or to stuff furniture.

In places like Hong Kong, a small population means the proportion suitable for resale is even lower – and any clothing that is not sold domestically, whether as clothes or in other forms, is sent to Africa.

Africa is now drowning in the clothes we do not want, some from Chinese fast-fashion producer Shein. Photo: Bloomberg

According to global development charity Oxfam, an estimated 70 per cent of clothes donated in first-world countries ended up in Africa in 2015.

As a result, Africa is now drowning in the clothes we do not want. By sunrise in Accra, Ghana, hundreds of clothing sellers have gathered to flog their wares – cheap logo T-shirts, skinny jeans, glittery dresses, and, in recent years, an increasingly dominant haul of garments from Chinese fast-fashion producer Shein.

The most obvious example of the hugely destructive impact fast fashion brands have on the ecosystem can be seen on Ghana’s once pristine white-sand beaches.

Africa is clogged with clothing made thousands of kilometres to the east, and worn by people from all over the world. Photo: Shutterstock

The Atlantic-facing West African country is a place of incredible natural beauty, but its seas, rivers and forests are now clogged with clothing made thousands of kilometres to the east, and worn by people from all over the world.

“One look at Ghana shows how much we need to reset habits,” says author Dana Thomas.

“We’ve been conditioned by fast fashion brands, via marketing, to over-consume – to think it’s normal to buy a new outfit for a hot date, to walk out of a store with a sack full of clothes, that US$10 is the correct price for a shirt. It’s not. You are contributing to global poverty by buying that cheap shirt.”

A thrift market in Algeria. The better-quality pieces of clothes that end up there are sent to heaving markets that have been set up in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia. Photo: Shutterstock

“Think of your fast fashion purchases that way, and you’ll stop. Basically: if the price is too cheap to believe, it’s too cheap – because after you have worn it once or twice, it will be out there, polluting parts of Africa for decades or even centuries to come.”

Countries like Ghana cannot cope with the sheer quantity of clothing being sent to them. Each week, the nation receives 15 million items of used clothing. Once these bundles of clothing have entered the African ecosystem, the better-quality pieces are sent to heaving markets that have been set up in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia.

These second-hand clothes have become part of African culture and have even entered the lexicon – they are called mitumba in Kenya, after the Swahili word for “bundles”, while in Zambia they are called salaula. Some estimates show that nearly 90 per cent of households buy second-hand clothing originating from outside Africa.

Forty per cent of the products sent to Africa have to be discarded once there because of their poor quality – and waste disposal there is less advanced than in developed countries. Photo: Shutterstock

The problem comes from the 40 per cent of the products sent to Africa that have to be discarded once there because of their poor quality.

Customers and even charities often see the cycle of sending clothes to Africa as a relatively environmentally friendly one, but the truth is that much of the industry is dedicated to moving clothes that would end up in dumpsites in the West to dumpsites in Africa.

It would be better to keep them where they were: Ghana does not have landfills or incinerators, so many of these clothes end up on the ocean floor, polluting entire ecosystems and killing sea life.

Shein’s name is often mentioned in this debacle because of the sheer quantity of clothes it produces. Photo: AFP

There is also a human cost: Africa’s textiles industries cannot compete with clothes that are essentially free – one local news report suggested that, a few decades ago, 500,000 people were employed in Kenya’s textile industry; today that figure is around 38,000.

Shein’s name is often mentioned in this debacle because of the sheer quantity of clothes it produces; and the sheer quantity of Shein produce that is thrown away. Earlier this year, the ultra-fast fashion brand was praised for making a donation of US$15 million to a charity working at Kantamanto in Accra, the world’s largest second-hand clothing market.

However, at the same forum at which this was announced, Liz Ricketts, director of the Or Foundation, which works with Accra’s textile-waste workers, spoke up.

African countries cannot cope with the sheer quantity of clothing being sent to them. Photo: Shutterstock

“They are economic migrants from north Ghana, and are often women and children, some as young as six,” she said. “They’re carrying clothing bales on their heads which weigh 55kg [120 pounds], being paid a dollar a trip, and coming home to sleep on concrete floors.

“Some carry their babies on their back. Sometimes they fall backwards because of the weight of the bales, and their children are killed.”

A sobering image we should all keep in mind the next time we are tempted to succumb to the saccharine hit of a fast-fashion purchase.

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