Ghana is one of the world's largest importers of second-hand clothing, known locally as 'obroni wawu', the clothes of a dead white person. On beaches at Jamestown and Korle Lagoon in Accra, scraps of cloth are now easier to see than sand, piled so high they look like hills from a distance. Anandabazar Patrika described the scene in a photo report.
According to the report, large quantities of used clothes arrive in Ghana every week from parts of the United States, Europe and Australia. At Accra's Kantamanto market they are sold in sealed bales that buyers cannot inspect. Fast fashion has lowered fabric quality, with most of it cheap polyester, so about 40 per cent of each bale is stained, torn or unwearable, and tonnes of clothing are thrown away every month.
Accra's waste system is weak, so much of this clothing ends up in drains and unauthorised dumps, many of them by the sea, from where the tide carries it onto the beaches. Made of polyester, nylon and acrylic, the garments break up in the waves into microplastics that pollute the water and harm marine life.
Local fishers are suffering too. They say that when they cast their nets they often haul up lumps of sand-filled cloth instead of fish. Fabric mixed into the sand holds moisture and blocks drainage, worsening flooding and mosquitoes and flies. Buried clothing twists into rope-like tangles that can trap a foot near the surf and put lives at risk, and environmentalists say residents' health is at risk as well.
Several NGOs have urged the Ghanaian government to be careful about used-clothing imports and to reduce them, and some are trying to make new products from the yarn of clothes collected on the beaches. When the mountains of clothing will be cleared, though, nobody can yet say.
Source: Anandabazar
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