Fast fashion disaster:« It all begins in the Global North »
Depending on your home location, fashion has a different impact on our lives and direct environment and even more when it comes to fast fashion.
Liz Ricketts and J Branson Skinner, both US fashion designers, zoomed into the secondhand clothing trade, studying the plate tectonics between the global North and Ghana where their NGO “The OR Foundation” is partially based. They recall « back in 2011, we were working on upcycled garments using t-shirts that we collected from people in the USA and also from the secondhand clothing market with the fair trade fashion company based in both Labadi (Ghana) and New York led by Raphael Adjetey Adjei Mayne (RAAM). Unfortunately the clothing company dissolved soon after. We began to think that creating another sustainable fashion company wasn’t tackling the root of the issue which we believe is education.” The duo, then launched an object-based, peer-education program called Collectofus and over the next four years they connected hundreds of young students from five states in the USA with students in Ghana and South Africa. As part of this program the students would study an item from their closet. “All of our Ghanaian students wore secondhand clothing so we began to learn more and to spend more time in Kantamanto market, the largest second-hand market in Ghana. Once you start going to Kantamanto to study and not to shop you start to see things differently. We always knew that some of the clothing was going to waste because you can’t find any store anywhere in the world that can sell 100% of its inventory. But between 2011 and 2015, we saw that the amount of waste was increasing. We also felt that there was a need for more nuanced information surrounding the secondhand clothing trade. In 2016 we were in a position to dedicate our resources to this research and so we launched “Dead White Man’s Clothes” as a multi-year multimedia research project”.
“Dead White Man’s clothes” or “obroni w’awu”, in Twi language, dedicated its research based on three lines of inquiry :
How has the secondhand clothing industry impacted the Ghanaian consumer's relationship with fashion?
How much of the clothing is actually being re-commodified versus how much of the clothing is becoming waste? And is this waste intentionally being dumped on Ghana by the Global North? What are the social and environmental implications?
What labor is involved? Who are the players, what tasks are carried out and what quality of life does this labor afford?
It all begins in the Global North and clothing comes from two main sources.“Consumers donate clothing. This could be excess from overconsumption or this could be the result of the fact that our bodies are changing. It’s important to acknowledge the range of reasons why people donate because it isn’t always about overconsumption and we have to reckon with the fact that our clothing will likely outlive us” confirms Liz Ricketts. Then, brands divert their excess (unsold or returned merchandise) from landfills in the Global North by partnering with clothing collectors who will take it for reuse or recycling. Clothing can go through several entities before it arrives at a sorting facility. Here the clothing is sorted by garment type and grade, baled up and exported. This whole process of donating, collecting, sorting and exporting is quite complex and there is no one path that clothing takes across the Global North. Generally clothing collectors sort out what is known as the “cream” to be sold in local thrift stores whereas the rest is prepared for export to the African continent.
In Ghana, importers will purchase containers of clothing from the exporters. Each container contains roughly 400 bales of varying types. The containers arrive at Tema Harbour, the importer pays to clear these containers and then they are transported to Kantamanto to be unloaded. Bales are then purchased by retailers. There are over 5,000 retailers in Kantamanto helped by kayayei (head porters) to transport the bales all over the market. The bales are typically stored until market days which are Wednesdays and Saturdays for most retailers. On these days retailers will open bales and sort the contents into four selections. These selections represent different levels of value and attract different types of customers from boutique owners to businessmen. The busiest day for consumers is Saturday when people will arrive as early as 5:30am in hopes of swooping up the highest quality items.
Upcycling works only for wearable garments. For the shredded, stained or unwearable ones, an average of 40% of the clothing becomes waste according to the organization research . “But some of the waste is simply the result of oversaturation. Roughly 15 million items of clothing flow through Kantamanto on a weekly basis in a country of 30 million people so this is simply more than can be sold” points out Liz. As Accra’s main landfill is overflowing with clothing, so much of the waste is handled informally meaning that it is dumped in Accra’s water bodies, sent to informal dumps or burned out in the open. “The truth is that we don’t know the full extent of the environmental damage due to a lack of research (globally) and because hundreds of chemicals are used in the manufacturing of our clothing. But we do know that clothing is not compatible with the ocean environment. The ocean floor should not be covered in our castaway clothing. We are beginning to take textile and water samples into the lab to better understand what is happening but at the very least this waste is causing problems for fishermen whose nets get caught in tangled masses of clothing. When burned clothing releases toxins and leaves behind microfibers that further pollute water bodies and food systems. Cattle and fish eat them. We may never determine the full impact from an academic point of view but we can certainly feel the weight of this crisis” admits Ricketts. This crisis has also a social impact. Despite the waste Kantamanto is an incredible example of sustainability with thousands of garments re-used and upcycled every week. Clothing is washed, dyed, mended, tailored and completely reimagined by consumers, designers and stylists. This is incredible but these acts of resilience are threatened by the fact that the market is oversaturated. Not only does the excess clothing make it more cumbersome to achieve all of these tasks (seamstresses work under piles of clothing and scraps) but oversaturation also drives down the perceived value of clothing. With so much to choose from consumers are starting to see clothing as a disposable good and are less willing to pay what it is worth to have these items tailored, printed or dyed. Retailers are making less money than they used to (only 16% turn a profit according to our research). Clothing is no longer seen as an investment. The excess is beginning to transform the way Ghanaian consumers relate to clothing and fashion in general.
Roughly 30,000 people work in Kantamanto (according to the Accra Metropolitan Authority) but the organisation research has shown that Kantamanto’s retailers no longer think of it as a job. At worst they describe it as “gambling” and at best they say it is just something to do. There is less dignity in the work than there was even a decade ago and the retailers who have been there for a while can relate. For now, The OR Foundation keeps on collecting data and advocate for the vulnerable population of Kantamanto, especially Kayayei women. “Our next move is to work with the Kayayei Youth Association to register kayayei for healthcare and to improve their living conditions. The Covid situation highlighted the issues these women were facing daily. We are also building a shredder in Kantamanto that will allow us to transform some of the waste into a new material for the mattress and furniture industries. From there, we plan on exploring more advanced forms of fiber and garment recycling all while continuing to advocate for policy reform in both the Global North and in Ghana”
interview by. Liz Gomis
photos. The OR Foundation
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