Ghana faces a growing environmental crisis from discarded clothing and textile waste, linked to fast‑fashion’s unsustainable practices and climate pressures such as El Niño.
“Fast Fashion Waste Is Choking Developing Countries With Mountains of Trash,” ICMGLT said, citing the huge amounts of discarded clothing that end up in Ghana’s landfills and waterways.
The crisis stems from the global fashion industry’s rapid production and consumption.
International trade moves cheap clothing to developing nations. In Ghana, Accra’s Kantamanto market serves as a hub for second‑hand garments, but imported quality is falling, hurting traders’ livelihoods.
Greenpeace Africa’s review of 201 discarded garments from three Accra sites found brands such as H&M, Primark and Marks & Spencer among the biggest polluters.
In a previous test, Greenpeace reported that 89 percent of the sampled garments contained synthetic fibers.
The EU has begun acting against what critics call “waste colonialism.” The revised waste directive treats collected textiles as waste unless professionals deem them reusable. From May 2027, exporting non‑hazardous waste to non‑OECD countries will be banned under the EU Waste Shipment Regulation.
El Niño is projected to bring stronger rainfall to East Africa and drought to Southern Africa, linking the crisis to climate change.
In Nigeria, polluted waterways and declining fish stocks threaten food security and livelihoods.
The Or Foundation works with people affected by the second‑hand clothing trade in Ghana, urging clearer rules on unusable imports and greater producer responsibility. In Nigeria, SustyVibes advances environmental education and community action, including the dignity and inclusion of waste pickers.
As the situation stands, the fashion industry’s unsustainable practices and the El Niño phenomenon are set to deepen West Africa’s existing vulnerabilities, calling for collective action and policy change.
In October 2026, a report highlighted the fashion‑waste crisis and its impact on Ghana.
Published reports also said that globally, 8‑10 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the leather industry.
Photographs taken along a Ghanaian shoreline show piles of discarded garments bearing the logos of Nike, H&M and Shein, confirming that donated clothing often ends up on beaches, rivers and waterways in Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and other Global South nations.
A Deloitte Consulting study cited in a Fordham research paper shows that environmentally conscious consumers are willing to pay more, wait longer for shipping or buy second‑hand items to support sustainability.
The Ghana Waste Recovery Platform has been cited as a national initiative to tackle textile waste.
An undergraduate thesis from the O’Neill School argues that Ghana and Tanzania show uneven responses to fast‑fashion waste, reflecting broader patterns of economic dependency between the Global North and peripheral economies.
Withers Worldwide’s January 2025 briefing outlines the legal perspectives on waste management in the fashion industry, emphasizing the need for brands to adopt transparent waste‑tracking systems.
Tara Zhang’s November 2024 research for the Human Rights Research Center documents the scale of second‑hand fast‑fashion waste circulating in Ghanaian markets.
“does not recognise national borders,” a photographic essay links waste from Jamestown in Accra to the Olusosun landfill in Lagos, showing a shared West African waste crisis.
Markets such as Kantamanto provide livelihoods for thousands of traders and make affordable clothing accessible, yet not every imported garment finds a second owner, leaving a surplus that overwhelms local waste‑management capacity.
Climate‑change lawyer Eva Meyer of the Netherlands has begun renting out rarely worn clothing at low cost, challenging the assumption that constant purchasing is the only way to access fashion.
Applying Immanuel Wallerstein’s core‑periphery theory, analysts describe the fashion system as one where wealthy industrialised nations hold economic power while peripheral countries integrate through unequal trade, labour and resource flows.
Although El Niño does not cause plastic pollution, climate pressures can worsen existing vulnerabilities; a coastal community already suffering from polluted waterways, inadequate drainage and limited waste infrastructure faces heightened risk from additional water‑related stress.
Beatrice Rindevall, chairwoman of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, said in a press release that many people find it difficult to resist buying impulses.
Representatives of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation said that responsibility for the waste problem cannot be placed solely on consumers, insisting that producers must assume greater accountability.
Grassroots groups such as the Green Africa Youth Organization and the Or Foundation have organized beach clean‑ups, launched education programmes and encouraged community participation to bridge gaps in textile‑waste management.
Policy commitments that address the waste issue before it reaches Ghana’s shores are essential for mitigating the crisis, according to a 2022 ICMGLT report titled “Fast Fashion Waste Is Choking Developing Countries With Mountains of Trash.”
Greenpeace’s November 2023 African blog post warned that fast fashion fuels a growing waste challenge across the continent, calling for urgent action to halt the flow of discarded garments.