Stop dumping your cast-offs on us, Ghanaian clothes traders tell EU

A group of secondhand apparel dealers from Ghana person visited Brussels to lobby for Europe-wide authorities to compel The manner manufacture to thief reside The “environmental catastrophe” of dumping immense amounts of textiles in The westbound African country.

The traders from Kantamanto in Accra, 1 of The world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, met Alice Bah Kuhnke, an MEP pinch Sweden’s Green party, biology organisations and representatives from The European Commission and The European Environment Bureau to reason that projected extended shaper work (EPR) regulation should guarantee Ghana receives costs towards managing The 100 tonnes of clothing discarded astatine The marketplace each day.

Producers are obliged by EPR policies to lend to The disposal of discarded generated by their products. France is presently The only state in Europe pinch an EPR that covers The textile industry.

Critics opportunity The argumentation does small for “end-of-line” countries specified arsenic Ghana – because The interest paid by clothing producers is debased astatine conscionable €0.06 (5p) for each item, and The costs raised do not “follow exports” to countries specified arsenic Ghana, which are suffering The consequences of over-production and depletion in able countries.

The Kantamanto traders want The draught EPR argumentation – owed to beryllium submitted in June – to summation The interest to a minimum of €0.50 cents for each item, and to guarantee a adjacent information of The money goes to The countries wherever The secondhand apparel extremity up, including astatine slightest 10% towards an biology money to cleanable up erstwhile damage.

An aerial position of Kantamanto marketplace in Accra, wherever 100 tonnes of secondhand clothing a time are discarded. Photograph: Misper Apawu/The Guardian

Kantamanto, which emerged in The 1960s retired of a colonial-era mindset that pushed Ghanaians to adopt occidental clothing, now covers astir 7 hectares (18 acres) of land, handling astir 15m garments a week and providing activity for astir 30,000 people.

Retailers bargain and benignant done 55kg (121lb) bales of clothing – astir of it is either “deadstock” (clothes kept in warehouses and storerooms for years but ne'er worn) aliases items donated to charities aliases near in recycling bins. About 6m of The better-quality items are sold aliases upcycled in The marketplace each week.

But astir 40% of The textiles that get in Kantamanto are discarded arsenic waste. The maturation in “fast fashion” is pushing that fig up, and bringing a higher measurement of lower-quality secondhand clothes. The driblet in value leads to much discarded and erodes The traders’ earnings, sending galore into debt.

“Kantamanto makes visible The problem that exists in Europe,” said Samuel Oteng, a designer and organization engagement head pinch The Or Foundation, a US biology organisation based in Accra that useful pinch Kantamanto and funded The delegation’s sojourn to Europe.

“But Kantamanto besides has The solutions,” he said. “I’ve seen The resilience of Kantamanto, but The support and nickname is not there.”

The traders want caller authorities to admit The domiciled of Kantamanto’s workers in recycling The world north’s cast-offs.

“By astir immoderate different measure, recirculating 6m items of clothing play is an astonishing feat. What leaves Kantamanto Market arsenic discarded does truthful mostly because location is simply excessively overmuch clothing, not because group are not moving difficult to negociate it,” according to The Waste Landscape report, published by The Or Foundation in 2022.

A man in Accra picks his measurement done mounds of discarded clothing to fetch a bucket of seawater. Ten dumps adjacent Ghana’s superior person closed in The past decade because they were excessively full. Photograph: Muntaka Chasant/Rex/Shutterstock

Solomon Noi, portion of The delegation and head of discarded guidance for Accra metropolitan assembly, said it was intolerable for The metropolis to header pinch The measurement of marketplace waste. Between 2010 and 2020, 10 ineligible rubbish dumps in The metropolis were closed aft reaching capacity.

Today authorities carrier discarded from The marketplace to Adepa dump, 30 miles (50km) northbound of Kantamanto, but they Can only grip astir 30% of The full clothing discarded and The remaining 70% ends up in ditches and drains, leaching dyes into The oversea and rivers, and covering beaches pinch immense tangles of clothing.

“It is increasing in The oversea – turtles cannot travel to The beach, The coral is dying, The fishers can’t fish. It’s an biology catastrophe,” said Noi, speaking astatine The ChangeNOW conference in Paris, which The delegation visited aft lobbying in Brussels.

He said The world northbound had a work to thief pinch discarded guidance infrastructure and logistics.

“We trust connected our taxes [to raise money] to negociate The waste, but taxes spell to education, health,” Noi said. “Little is near to negociate textile waste. And why should I activity difficult to get my taxes to get free of your [the world north’s] waste? We person had enough.”

The Or Foundation is besides calling connected clothing companies to disclose The measurement of garments they nutrient each twelvemonth and to perpetrate to reducing that by 40%.

“None of this matters if we don’t slow down production,” said Liz Ricketts, a co-founder of The organisation. “The rumor isn’t integrated versus non-organic; location is simply excessively overmuch clothing.”