Fashion wastelands in Africa and the Atacama Desert. P6

Shidonna Raven
Nov 11
2 min read

By Helle Abelvik-Lawson

September 22, 2023

Photo Source: Unsplash

Fashion wastelands in Africa and the Atacama Desert

A project called Dead White Man’s Clothes, after the name given to clothing exports from the West to Ghana, shows grimly the problem of fashion waste exports.

Traders and tailors in Accra’s Kantamanto market work hard to repurpose and sell the clothing that arrives on their shores.

The upcycling and reuse culture in Accra is a great example of what a more sustainable and circular fashion industry could look like.

But the sheer volume – and poorly constructed fast fashion items that aren’t made to last – means a lot of it is impossible to use and upcycle.

So it ends up in landfills, wrapped around the ropes of fishing boats near Accra, and strewn across beaches.

Solomon Noi, the city’s head of waste management, reckons that 40% of the used clothing coming through Accra’s port ends up as garbage. A landfill that was supposed to have a lifespan of 25 years filled up in three.https://t.co/TenL37Mkjm via @BW— Valérie Boiten (@Valerie_Boiten) November 9, 2022

And Ghana isn’t the only country facing these massive problems. A recent investigation revealed that Europe is dumping 37 million pieces of plastic clothing on Kenya, too.

A 2022 Greenpeace report found massive fashion waste exports pouring into Kenya and Tanzania. In 2019 alone, 185,000 tonnes of second-hand clothes were imported into Kenya. In East Africa this second hand fashion is called “Mitumba”, a Kiswahili word meaning bale or bundle, because it is typically sold to retailers in bales.

30–40% of Mitumba imported to Kenya is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold anymore, meaning in 2019, Kenya had to deal with 150–200 tonnes of fashion and textile waste per day.

And there’s also the Atacama Desert, where piles of clothing waste were documented in 2021:

This is all very embarrassing for the fashion industry. They make too much – and they know it.

But what happens when clothing doesn’t even make it into the hands of buyers? Some of this brand-new, unworn clothing also ends up in places like Ghana.

A lot of it is sent to be burned.