As fast fashion's waste pollutes Africa's environment, designers in Ghana are finding a solution

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — In a sprawling secondhand clothing market in Ghana’s capital, early morning shoppers jostle as they search through piles of garments, eager to pluck a bargain or a designer find from the stalls selling used and low-quality apparel imported from the West.

At the other end of the street, an upcycled fashion and thrifting festival unfolds with glamour and glitz. Models parade along a makeshift runway in outfits that designers created out of discarded materials from the Kantamanto market, ranging from floral blouses and denim jeans to leather bags, caps and socks.

The festival is called Obroni Wawu October, using a phrase that in the local Akan language means “dead white man’s clothes.” Organizers see the event as a small way to disrupt a destructive cycle that has made Western overconsumption into an environmental problem in Africa, where some of the worn-out clothes end up in waterways and garbage dumps.

“Instead of allowing (textile waste) to choke our gutters or beaches or landfills, I decided to use it to create something ... for us to use again,” said Richard Asante Palmer, one of the designers at the annual festival organized by the Or Foundation, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of environmental justice and fashion development.

Ghana is one of Africa's leading importers of used clothing. It also ships some of what it gets from the United Kingdom, Canada, China and elsewhere to other West African nations, the United States and the U.K., according to the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association.

Some of the imported clothes arrive in such poor shape, however, that vendors dispose of them to make room for the next shipments. On average, 40% of the millions of garments exported weekly to Ghana end up as waste, according to Neesha-Ann Longdon, the business manager for the Or Foundation’s executive director.

The clothing dealers association, in a report published earlier this year on the socioeconomic and environmental impact of the nation’s secondhand clothing trade said only 5% of the items that reach Ghana in bulk are immediately thrown out because they cannot be sold or reused.

In many African countries, citizens typically buy preowned clothes — as well as used cars, phones and other necessities — because they cost less than new ones. Secondhand shopping also gives them a chance to score designer goods that most people in the region can only dream of.

But neither Ghana's fast-growing population of 34 million people nor its overtaxed infrastructure is equipped to absorb the amount of cast-off attire entering the country. Mounds of textile waste litter beaches across the capital, Accra, and the lagoon which serves as the main outlet through which the city’s major drainage channels empty into the Gulf of Guinea.

“Fast fashion has taken over as the dominant mode of production, which is characterized here as higher volumes of lower-quality goods,” Longdon said.

Jonathan Abbey, a fisherman in the area, said his nets often capture textile waste from the sea. Unsold used clothes “aren’t even burned but are thrown into the Korle Lagoon, which then goes into the sea,” Abbey said.

The ease of online shopping has sped up this waste cycle, according to Andrew Brooks, a King’s College London researcher and the author of “Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes.”

In countries like the U.K., unwanted purchases often end up as charity donations, but clothes are sometimes stolen from street donation bins and exported to places where the consumer demand is perceived to be higher, Brooks said. Authorities rarely investigate such theft because the clothes are "seen as low-value items,” he said.

Donors, meanwhile, think their castoffs are “going to be recycled rather than reused, or given away rather than sold, or sold in the U.K. rather than exported overseas,” Brooks said.

The volume of secondhand clothing sent to Africa has led to complaints of the continent being used as a dumping ground. In 2018, Rwanda raised tariffs on such imports in defiance of U.S. pressure, citing concerns the West's refuse undermined efforts to strengthen the domestic textile industry. Last year, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said he would ban imports of clothing “from dead people.”

Trade restrictions might not go far in either reducing textile pollution or encouraging clothing production in Africa, where profits are low and incentives for designers are few, experts say.

In the absence of adequate measures to stop the pollution, organizations like the Or Foundation are trying to make a difference by rallying young people and fashion creators to find a good use for scrapped materials.

Ghana's beaches had hardly any discarded clothes on them before the country's waste management problems worsened in recent years, foundation co-founder Liz Ricketts said.

“Fast forward to today, 2024, there are mountains of textile waste on the beaches,” she said.

—-

Editors note: This story has been corrected in the penultimate paragraph to identify the co-founder of the OR Foundation as Liz Ricketts.

An attendee wears an upcycle outfit during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A model dressed in an upcycled outfit poses during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A woman dressed in second-hand clothes attends a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A man dressed in second-hand clothes attends a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Attendees at a thrift and an upcycle show pose for a photograph in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A young man dressed in a thrift outfit poses for a photograph during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A man dressed in an upcycled outfit poses for a photograph during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A model shows thrift rings during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A lady poses for a photograph during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A designer sets up his upcycle outfit on a mannequin during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Attendees pose for a photograph during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

An upcycle designer poses for a photograph during a thrift and an upcycle show in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

An upcycle designer stitches buttons on an upcycled cloth in the remanufacturing space at the OR Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A pictorial design to be made with textile waste from Kantamanto is displayed on the phone in the remanufacturing space at the OR Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Designers work in the remanufacturing space at the OR Foundation to upcycle textile waste in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Second-hand clothes and waste pollute the beach shore at Jamestown in Accra, Ghana,Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Women sort fish through textile waste on the beach shore at Jamestown in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Textile waste pollutes the beach shore at Jamestown in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Volunteers and workers for the OR Foundation partake in a beach clean up at Jamestown in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Textile waste pollutes the beach shore at Jamestown in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A head porter carries a bale of Second-hand clothes at Kantamanto market, one of the world's largest second-hand clothes markets in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A head porter carries a bale of Second-hand clothes at Kantamanto market, one of the world's largest second-hand clothes markets in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A second-hand retailer sorts out clothes at Kantamanto, one of the world's largest second-hand clothing markets, in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

People offload bales of Second-hand clothes from a truck at Kantamanto market, one of the world's largest second-hand clothes markets in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Cows are seen at the largest dumpsite where textile waste ends up at Old Fadama in Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Costas Simitis, former prime minister of Greece and the architect of the country’s joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at age 88, state TV ERT reported.

Simitis was taken to a hospital in the city of Corinth early Sunday morning from his holiday home west of Athens, unconscious and without a pulse, the hospital’s director was quoted as saying by Greek media. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Simitis, a co-founder of the Socialist PASOK party in 1974, eventually became the successor to the party’s founding leader, Andreas Papandreou, with whom he had an often contentious relationship that shaped the party’s nature. Simitis was a low-key pragmatist where Papandreou was a charismatic, fiery populist. He was also a committed pro-European, while Papandreou banked on strong opposition to Greece’s joining what was then the European Economic Community in the 1970s, before changing tack once he became prime minister.

When the profligate first four years of socialist rule, from 1981 to 1985, resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to be finance minister and oversee a tight austerity program. Finances improved, inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program.

The socialists returned to power in 1993, but Papandreou was ailing, and he finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister.

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone, in January 2001, as the signature achievement of his premiership. But he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a brand new airport and two subway lines, to help host the games. He also helped Cyprus join the European Union in 2004.

His critics on the right and left did their best to denigrate his legacy, highlighting a dubious debt swap concluded after the country had joined the eurozone as an attempt to massage the debt numbers.

In the end, it was determined opposition from his own party, including trade union leaders, to pension reform in 2001 that fatally weakened Simitis’ administration. He decided to resign his party post and not contest the 2004 election, five months before the Olympics, rather than face certain defeat to the conservatives.

George Papandreou, son of the socialist party’s founder, succeeded him as party leader, and in 2008 expelled Simitis from the PASOK parliamentary group after the two men clashed over policies, including Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. Simitis left parliament in 2009, but not before issuing a prescient warning that financial mismanagement would bring the country under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, which would impose harsh austerity. In the end, it was the IMF, jointly with the EU, that imposed a harsh regime on a bankrupt country in 2010.

Costas Simitis was born on June 23, 1936, the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father Georgios was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany, specializing in data protection.

Simitis is survived by his wife of 60 years, Daphne, and two daughters.

FILE - Greece's Prime Minister Costas Simitis declares a razor-thin victory over conservative opponents following general elections, in Athens on Monday, April 10, 2000. Costas Simitis, a Prime Minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004 and the architect of the country's joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at 88, state TV ERT reports.(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

FILE - Greece's Prime Minister Costas Simitis declares a razor-thin victory over conservative opponents following general elections, in Athens on Monday, April 10, 2000. Costas Simitis, a Prime Minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004 and the architect of the country's joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at 88, state TV ERT reports. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)