Clothing disaster in Ghana

[ChineseFakeaway]

A few weeks back there was widespread media coverage of the situation in Ghana (particularly in Accra I believe) to do with the masses of discarded clothing imported in mind-boggling amounts.

There are many issues involved but what’s been on my mind is this:

An increasing number of these items are completely unusable. Stained or worn out.
I do my best to reduce/reuse/recycle and when I have (for example) torn or 😩 bobbled outgrown items that are no good for the charity shop I wash them and put them in a local donation bin that accepts clean textiles, even if stained or torn.

I’m now thinking that it might be more responsible to simply put them in the dustbin. Then they would be incinerated rather than potentially ending up on an African beach.

(A certain amount of textile waste is inevitable - knickers wear out, children keep growing and not everything is suitable for handing down or donating for resale. So simply saying “don’t buy more clothes” isn’t realistic.)

Thoughts?

I thought that charity shops recycled fabrics that couldn’t be worn - I read it here I am sure.

the only answer is buy less, I guess.

What makes you think the rubbish will be incinerated if the rags aren't?

Rubbish where I live is incinerated. The rags are supposedly recycled, but clearly many of them are ending up in Ghana.

https://amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/may/31/stop-dumping-your-cast-offs-on-us-ghanaian-clothes-traders-tell-eu

It's happening all over Africa. The local markets in Malawi are full of people sitting on the ground surrounded by clothes that have clearly been sent there, and which they're trying to sell. Literally dozens of stalls/piles in even the smallest towns' markets. There is next to no local clothes manufacturing now. There's no market for their products now.

I'm under the impression that the organizations who put plastic sacks through our letterboxes are among the worst for being the source of any old rubbish over there. But I can't be certain.

We cut ours up for rags for dh job as buying a barrel or rags is pricey.

Everything else is donated

I very rarely donate clothes. I don’t have many anyway, so I would have to walk naked if I wanted to donate to every charity that leaves these rubbish plastic bags through letterbox. Most of my and husband’s stuff is so worn out, that no one would want to wear it, so we bring it straight to our local recycling centre.

I suspect the recycled clothes end in the same place?

@xogossipgirlxo I think a big part of the problem is that recyclers (not necessarily your local centre!) are sending absolutely everything to Ghana and apparently other African countries too. Wearable or not. So my question is, should I be binning these to at least make sure no bad faith resellers get their hands on them? Presumably there is more recyclable textile material than there’s will/need to recycle it.

So the only answer is to put it to landfill? Can’t believe we didn’t find a solution to this problem yet:/ Even if you don’t buy much, you still contribute somehow. Ugh.

I am tempted to check it, although I don’t know if I get any answers. It’s council recycling site that you need resident permit for.

I'd put them in the bin too. Our black bin stuff gets incinerated. Anything decent I used to pass on.

It wouldn’t surprise me @xogossipgirlxo if there’s absolutely no transparency in the chain so they wouldn’t have known about it anyway 😞
I saw a Ghanaian guy on the news saying something along the lines of do Europeans think we’re so poor that we’re glad to have their rags? It was clear that he was talking about the kind of things I give for recycling: clean, but not something anyone would want to buy from the charity shop in a million years!

I saw this in markets in Africa 30 years ago. It was dismaying to see the amount of junk effectively we imposed on them in the name of good will. I imagine it’s even worse now.

I had thought they properly recycled textiles that couldn’t be reused but it seems that’s rare.

only recycling can be exported though and obviously Ghana not only has to agree to accept it but also gets paid for it. It’s a bit patronising to decide not to buy any clothes in case they are exported to Ghana for recycling. Ghana itself needs to take action. Typical Guardian article though.

It’s a bit patronising to decide not to buy any clothes in case they are exported to Ghana for recycling.

Eh? 🤣🤣

Try this then if you don’t like the Guardian. https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100358702

Traders BUY these clothes essentially sight unseen and increasingly lose money on them.

I don’t see what’s patronising about caring about beaches and wildlife and not wanting to play any part in polluting them. I wouldn’t go naked for the cause though.

I try to give or sell stuff through Facebook rather than dump to charity shops..there are a lot of people in our local areas who can benefit from good quality ( free ) used clothing. Stained or ripped stuff gets recycled as cleaning rags, or binned. Better for environment too as the clothes don't travel far.

We have a new charity shop in town and I swear it's the busiest shop!

Seems like people are happy to buy second hand... Certainly makes sense to me

Part of the answer is for consumers in the west to buy far fewer clothes in the first place. And making those they have last as long as possible (repair, renovate, repurpose)

And to send as much as possible for reuse rather than reprocessing (ie dumping in some other country)

More retailers are now taking responsibility for the "end of life" of their goods (they have bins where you can return them) and they are less likely to be dumped than those given to organisations which put bags through your door

Can clothes ever be fully recycled? - BBC Future