Inside Ghana's largest secondhand clothes market, the place 7.5 million kilos of donated clothes arrive each week
The market is the final cease for a lot of the world’s used clothes. However due to the overwhelming provide, greater than a 3rd of the clothes depart as waste, piling up in landfills, clogging water methods, and polluting the ocean.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider
American donation facilities, like Goodwill or Salvation Military, make use of exporters to take clothes that doesn’t promote in thrift shops to sorting services all over the world.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
Sorting services sift by means of the thousands and thousands of remaining items to correctly get rid of ones which might be in no situation to promote. Nonetheless, many slip by means of the cracks and find yourself in shipments to their ultimate cease: Kantamanto Market.
Supply: Insider
Delivery containers of tightly-packed, 125-pound bales arrive within the ports of Accra for distribution. Retailers purchase the bales from anyplace between $100 to $300 with out understanding its contents.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
Supply: Insider
The retailers’ income are solely depending on the standard of their bales — good clothes might go for 10 cedis ($1.60) whereas cheaper or ripped gadgets could possibly be bought for 1 cedi ($0.16).
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
Supply: Insider
Whereas this was as soon as a sustainable enterprise for some distributors, the costs of the bales are rising whereas the standard of the garments have declined, leaving many in debt.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
Supply: Insider
So as to enhance high quality, Kantamanto employees dye denim denims to make them look new, buff sneakers to enhance their shade, and recruit onsite tailors to stitch broken clothes.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider
Most of the low cost clothes are from corporations that produce “quick style,” or mass-marketed clothes that makes use of cheap materials and labor. What does not promote out there is then transferred to massive landfills that rival close by buildings in top.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
Supply: Insider
These landfills overflow into the cities open sewage system which may contribute to flooding and create a public well being disaster. The landfills develop into a breeding floor for mosquitoes that unfold malaria. Rainwater soaking within the stacks of garments also can unfold cholera.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider
The clothes have additionally ended up on the town’s seashores, piling up on the shoreline, ultimately being washed away by the waves, polluting the ocean.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider
Non-profit organizations, just like the Or Basis, have tracked the buildup of clothes on the shoreline, measuring as much as 350 giant “tentacles” of tattered clothes tangled collectively in simply two months.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Productions
As the worldwide waste disaster grows and landfills are now not an possibility, international locations like Ghana have needed to provide you with inventive options to repurpose the waste that comes by means of their ports.
Supply: Or Basis, Insider
By workshops and help from the Or Basis, Kantamanto retailers are studying how one can sew and make a revenue from mended clothes.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame/ Kashif Khan Productions
Supply: Insider
Others can learn to shred unsellable clothes to make insulation for housing supplies or mattresses. Though it doesn’t at all times flip a big revenue, the follow is ready to cut back the quantity of waste on the shorelines overrun by clothes.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider
On a world scale, resolution makers are taking authorized motion. France and Sweden have already handed “prolonged producer accountability” laws that requires textile makers to fund clothes recycling all over the world.
Daniel Attoh and Modestus Zame / Kashif Khan Manufacturing
Supply: Insider, HM Authorities
