Ghana, the global “fast fashion” dumping ground

On Jamestown Beach, Joey Ayesu’s morning run is no walk in the park. At the end of this popular neighborhood in Ghana’s capital Accra, you have to slalom between fishing boats, Styrofoam trays, plastic bottles and, even more, scraps of shoes, trousers and T-shirts. Furrows, which in some places form real dunes where pigs stop. A spectacle of desolation that Joey and his companions cross to collect water from the sea. These samples, which will be collected every week from August 2022 in the ocean (Gulf of Guinea) and the lagoon, aim to assess the pollution caused by the massive landing. Used fabrics from Western countries and Asia.

“We’re measuring the amount of microfibers in the water from all those nylon or polyamide clothes that wash up on our beaches.”Joey explains with the cap on the test tube. “Our metabolism is at real risk, not least because fish ingest these substances and we eat fish.”Continues the laboratory technician in charge of ecological research at the two foundations, the non-governmental organization coordinating this research, the first results of which should be published by the end of the year.

Founded by former American fashion designer Liz Ricketts, the Ghana-based organization fights against the West African country’s transformation into a dumping ground for Western textiles. Because over the years, it has become one of the mainstays of global “fast fashion”, that disposable and shoddy fashion that suffers a lot of collateral damage in the process. Every week, around 15 million second-hand items arrive there in containers that European, American, Chinese or Korean consumers have chosen to dispose of. Most of these Defense wow (“Dead white man’s clothes », as they are called in the Twi language) are transported to Kantamanto, located in the economic heart of Accra, for sale in one of the largest second-hand markets in Africa. They feed a veritable ecosystem of 30,000 tailors and merchants. But the Gold Foundation estimates that 40% of used clothing is of such poor quality that it must be scrapped.

“Colonialism of Waste”

“Overproduction and overconsumption in the North is a black box in the fashion industryLiz Ricketts worries. An overflow is sent here, but it is neither recycling nor charity: it is a business whose harmful effects Ghana must manage without means. » A “Colonialism of Waste” What the Foundation wants to emphasize by taking a delegation of Cantamanto merchants to Brussels and Paris from Friday, May 19. On the program: meetings with MEPs and NGOs, actors of the collection and sorting sector and various round tables, namely during the ChangeNow Summit, organized from May 25 to 27 in Paris, at the ephemeral Grand Palais.