Case Study
Ghana: Secondhand market and textile waste
Created by
Or Foundation
,
2024
Over the last few years, the secondhand market has grown considerably thanks to shifting consumer perceptions influenced by increasing environmental consciousness. While participating in the secondhand market is a good practice, it’s important to recognise that it is not a perfect system. Some clothing collection programmes and recycling facilities are not fully transparent about their practices, and can’t guarantee that they are truly minimising the amount of textiles that go into landfills.
In this case study we
interviewed The Or Foundation, who explains the realities of the secondhand clothing trade in Ghana. While some of these unwanted textiles can be resold through local markets such as Kantamanto, the world’s largest reuse and upcycling economy, the rest leaves as waste, either getting burnt or swept into sea. This highlights how overseas exporting does not solve the problem of waste, but instead passes the burden to other places.
1. What is the situation in Ghana when it comes to secondhand imports?
Kantamanto Market in Accra is the largest reuse and upcycling economy in the world, successfully recirculating about 25 million garments every month through reuse, repair, and upcycling, which far surpasses any resale platform in the Global North. This speaks to the fact that reuse requires a distributed economy, not a consolidated source, because unlike a plastic bottle which has no real reuse market, each garment is unique in colour, style, size, texture, and more.
Therefore, recommodifying used clothing requires finding an individual buyer for every individual item. While Kantamanto is a model of circular practices, there is no retail utopia where every individual used garment will find a home. With fast fashion lowering the quality of clothing that secondhand retailers receive, and with prices of clothing bales on the rise, the reality is that not every garment can be sold.
Our research found that 40% of the average bale leaves the market as waste. Of this, 50–70% is taken to a controlled dumpsite (the only sanitary landfill available to Accra exploded in flames in August 2019) and the rest is handled informally, much of it burnt in open piles around the market, or swept into gutters where it eventually makes its way to the sea.
Credit: The Or Foundation
Kantamanto makes visible a waste crisis that originates from the Global North because here in Ghana, there is nowhere, no landfill or incinerator, to hide the truth that in an oversupplied linear economy, every garment is waste… until proven otherwise.
2. What initiatives are currently in place to manage or prevent waste?
We work as holistically as possible toward our mission of catalysing a justice-led circular economy, one that prioritises the prosperity of communities like Kantamanto who have carried the burden of the linear economy.
We do not subscribe to a materials-based framework for circularity, but instead focus on distributing power and wealth, because there can be no bottom or top in a circular economy. Our work includes material research and development, microfibre monitoring, cleanup (we currently remove 10 tons of textile and other plastic waste from Accra’s beaches every week), environmental remediation, economic relief programs (we host the largest job training programme in Ghana for women formerly working as head-carriers, transporting heavy bales of clothing waste on their heads), and business and skills training for upcyclers.
The Or Foundation team. Credit: The Or Foundation
We also host an annual festival called Obroni Wawu October to celebrate Kantamanto, and currently, our biggest project underway is to upfit the market infrastructure in a way that eliminates the need for dangerous head-carrying — labour which can be fatal for the young women who head-carry bales throughout the market — while making it a safer and more dignified place to work for all.
On the industry front, we are leading the charge to make Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies work for communities like Kantamanto and our Speak Volumes campaign calls on brands of all sizes to come clean on the one data point that matters most to everyone: production volumes.
3. In your opinion, what are the solutions for this waste crisis?
Pay value-chain actors a living wage based on Income Level 4 guidelines (not US$2 a day poverty wages), which ensures that garment workers have the ability to exit exploitative conditions.
Make EPR globally accountable, following the recommendations laid out in our Stop Waste Colonialism campaign.
Finally, we urge the fashion industry to reduce global production volumes of new clothing by at least 40%.
About the Contributor
The Or Foundation (pronounced “or”) is a not-for-profit organisation working to develop solutions to fashion’s global waste crisis and the communities that are most impacted by it. Based on the ground in Accra, Ghana, home to Kantamanto Market — the world’s largest secondhand clothing market and leading hub for reuse, repair, upcycling, and remanufacturing — The Or Foundation has leveraged its insights and firsthand knowledge to identify and implement innovative solutions, advocate for meaningful international policy change and brand accountability, lead science-backed research initiatives, and provide education and programming.
