An investigation has found that a mountain of discarded clothing from the UK has been dumped in a protected wetland in Ghana.
Items from retailers Marks & Spencer, Primark, H&M, Zara and Next were found to be stacked along the Dens River in Ghana. Report from Excavated.
Clothing is also accumulated on beaches and canals in the nearby capital, Accra. At one resort, staff spend four hours each day collecting used clothing and plastic bottles from the beach.
“Fast Fashion” means retailers are selling more and more inexpensive clothing, More waste. UK consumers now remove 1.5 million tonnes of clothing each year, and Ghana is the biggest destination for discarded clothing.
Every week, hundreds of used clothing are delivered to the second-hand market of Accra’s kantamants, with about 100 tons of unsold clothing leaving the market as waste, many of which go to lagoons, wetlands and the oceans.
Traders say an increase in share of imported clothing cannot be used. “In the past, we’ve been wearing good clothes to sell to care for our families, but these days the used clothes we found in ba oil are not suitable for resale,” said Mercy Asanteva, a trader at Kantamant. It was excavated. “They are not made and are already falling apart when we open the veil.”
Marks & Spencer and Primark are currently implementing a takeback scheme to address waste. H&M and Zara said they support a policy that will take labels accountable for the full lifespan of their products. Next, they did not respond to requests for comment.
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