Fashion Waste Colonisation
Each year, the world consumes approximately 80 billion new pieces of clothing. Americans buy 4 times as much clothing now as they did in 1980. And yet, only about 20% of discarded clothes are reused of recycled.
So, where do they go?
In 2015, Wrap UK estimated that 70% of UK cast-offs head overseas, mainly to Poland, Ghana, Pakistan and Ukraine. In Ghana, these clothes are named “obroni wawu” – clothes of the dead white man.
Since the 1980s and 90s, used clothing has gained significant traction in Africa’s retail market; the second hand market is now a key source of income for many people after decades of used-clothing exports. However, this has had a devastating effect on the continent’s own textile and clothing industries, with local producers and designers being overshadowed and priced out by cheap, second-hand alternatives.
A few decades ago the clothing sent abroad was at least of better quality than the cheap clothes which fast fashion produces today, most of which do not biodegrade and are loaded with fibres and dyes hazardous for the environment. Liz Ricketts, co-founder of the OR Foundation which aims to discourage the dominant consumer relationship with fashion, explains that 40% of clothing which enters Ghana’s Kantamanto market leaves as waste. Therefore, countries like Ghana are having to deal with the enormous amounts of textile waste generated by England and other Western countries; we do not even need to face the consequences of our own waste. If this waste does not contribute to already-packed landfill sites, they clog gutters, causes floods and pollute seas and beaches. Ricketts states simply that this waste colonisation “is killing people.” The Ghanaian capital Accra sees life-threatening floods annually.
However, certain African nations are demonstrating admirable innovation and creativity in their second-hand markets – and we can learn something from them. Nigerian writer and lawyer Nnaemeka Ugochukwu explains how the Nigerian Okirika markets have created a demand for tailors who “stitch, mend, and sharpen or completely upcycle clothes… Denim trousers can be converted to skirts and a plaid trouser can by upcycled into fashionable shorts in the blink of an eye.”
Ricketts further explains that whilst in the Western world we see ourselves as consumers, “Ghanaian shoppers have a less transactional relationship with fashion where clothing is seen as material that they can recreate and reconstruct.” Sadly, she outlines that Ghana’s upcycling creativity is being overshadowed by the excess of goods being imported – each week, 15 million garments pass through Accra’s Kantamanto market alone, in a country of 30 million people.
We could learn so much from other cultures about our relationship to clothes, and consumption in general. A piece of clothing should not be a throw-away item, but something precious as well as useful, sturdy as well as stylish. Before being thrown away, they can be altered, mended, upcycled or changed. It’s hard to adjust our mindsets (trust me – I love clothes, I know!), but we cannot continue to subject other nations to our waste. Let’s learn from them so that we may stop exploiting them, and work together to fuel the sustainable fashion revolution.