What happens to the world's secondhand clothing waste? The reality of this is unsettling, but one organisation is attempting to turn the tide
At the Global fashion summit this year, Liz Ricketts, the co-founder of The Or Foundation, a non-profit which works with Ghana’s Kantamanto community, one of the world’s largest second-hand clothing markets, made the crowd awkwardly fidget in their seats when sharing the news that the organisation recently signed an agreement with Shein, the much-debated fast-fashion brand, to receive a $15 million payment. Critics deemed it the pinnacle of greenwashing, but for the organisation it's a much needed needed lifeline.
"My perspective on the secondhand trade was narrow, lacking nuance; we talk about donation, charity, and recycling. The announcement we made with Shein only highlights that most people don't even know that Kantamanto exists,” explains Ricketts.
Photo courtesy Liz Ricketts. Liz wears a T-shirt recovered from waste stream at Kantamanto. She have had it embroidered with "dead white man's clothes".
At Ghana’s Kantamanto market, where nearly five million pounds of clothing flows through every week, used items from countries such as the US, UK, and EU converges – with the top three brands arriving being: H&M, Nike and Adidas.
“The clothing trade was named “Dead White Man’s Clothes” by the people in the late 50s when second-hand clothing started flooding into Ghana. Assuming it was coming from deceased white foreigners,” Ricketts says. “Today they know different.”
"Here we have the world's largest reused and upcycling economy on a volume basis. Compare it to ThredUp in the US, recirculating 100,000,000 garments in 10 years of doing business, or in Sweden there’s Sellpy.
Second-hand clothing market Kantamanto . Photo: Getty
“Thread Up has received millions of dollars of investments and positive press. They are doing good work but still have waste, selling only 40% of what they get, 60% goes to what they call the aftermarkets, like Kantamanto."
Many of us think that donating our old clothes is doing good, but this is a fallacy, says Ricketts, as a lot of our donated clothing ends up in Ghana. The Or foundation’s research shows that around 40% of the clothes circulating through the retail side of Kantamanto market leaves as waste. Excess with nowhere to go but into the ocean, or pile up into toxic mountains that when exposed to heavy rainfall or fire has led to catastrophe for its citizens.
“Kantamanto recirculates 100,000,000 garments every four months. When the clothing bales arrive, the retailers purchase them, each bale costs between $75 and $400. If they cut a bale and find that it contains only a few usable pieces, the retailer won't get their money back.”
Photo: Nana Kwadwo Agyei Addo, Accra Studios
"From here, there's no other way to pass on the garments; most importantly, people don't export their problems to someone else to deal with,” Ricketts continues.
“Kantamanto is reality, it's choking to witness. All the superficial aspects of the fashion industry, the performance of clothing, when stripped away, you just see piles of stuff everywhere, there's very little precious about it.”
But Kantamanto is also a hive of upcycling activity – so, how do retailers there actually work?
”People in Ghana are schooled from a young age in tailoring and often take classes at the local tailor's. "They learn their measurements and are used to having things altered,” she says.
“This helps people see clothing as a material you can customise, so they aren't looking to find something ready to wear when shopping. There's an ecosystem of retailers, cobblers, tailors, dyers, seamstresses, and people mending, pressing, and washing clothes."
The respect for clothing is also second-to-none. To illustrate this, Ricketts tells the story of Kwaku, a tailor who works in the foundation’s No More Fast Fashion Lab for Community Design lab, just a short walk from the clothing market.
“He specialises in split-panel polo shirts; his most famous design is that he takes two polos together, adds piping and resizes it – a lot of work and expertise goes into each garment, putting time and savings into ironing and folding every piece of clothing perfectly.”
"For me, that is so important because the self-respect he has for himself, his work, and for the people he sends these clothes to are non-existent in the way we send things to Kantamanto. It's a mindset we lack: donating things because we don't know how to repair them."
The foundation also works closely with the Kayeiy, which means "she who carries the burden", a group of female head-carriers, many of whom carry clothing bundles that weigh over 55 kilos.
"The foundation has had a chiropractor research team working for a year with 100 girls, the Kayeiy, and now we can take the girls away from this backbreaking job,” explains Ricketts.
Going forwards, the emphasis, says Ricketts, is on educating. “We have realised that the role we should play is not to create more products, even if we are upcycling or making things fair trade. It's time to focus on education, and make people think more correctly about this part of the industry.”