© Kevin McElvaney / Greenpeace

The fashion industry has a massive plastic problem that it outsources to countries in the Global South, where textile waste pollutes the environment. Ghana is one of the world’s largest consumers of second-hand textiles. A good 120,000 tonnes of second-hand clothing from Asia, North America and Europe end up in the West African country every year. More than half of the clothing is inferior disposable goods with no resale value – much of it is made of plastic.

On a research trip to Accra, a team from Greenpeace Africa and Greenpeace Germany used infrared scanners to examine discarded clothing at landfill sites and identify the various fibres. The result: almost nine out of ten items of clothing (89 per cent) contain synthetic fibres made from fossil fuels. After the garments are thrown away, these synthetic fibres decompose into microplastics. In the tested clothing from the Kantamanto market – the largest second-hand textile market in West Africa – the figure is as high as 96 per cent.

Greenpeace also analysed the air quality in three wash houses in Accra where textile waste is incinerated. The results show that the air is heavily polluted with hazardous chemicals, many of which are single or multiple carcinogens, mutagens and toxic to reproduction.

As part of a return-to-sender campaign, Greenpeace shipped textile waste back to Germany in a container designed by Ghanaian artists in order to take further samples and raise awareness about the destructive side of fast fashion.

Overconsumption in the textile industry and the massive use of synthetic plastic fibres and blended fabrics are causing devastating environmental damage and threatening nature and people in the Global South.

In the picture: A Greenpeace team carries out infrared scans and analyses textile waste at the landfill site near Mortuary Road
Die Fashion-Industrie hat ein massives Plastikproblem, das sie in Länder des Globalen Südens auslagert, wo Textilmüll die Umwelt verschmutzt. Ghana gehö

upcycling

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