I went to visit a local beach recently, and it was a wonderful, rejuvenating experience.
But, imagine going to the beach and seeing this view…
This is Ghana, in Africa.
Every week, Ghana receives millions items of used clothing donated with good intentions from the West, but the influx has now become an environmental hazard in Ghana, and beyond.
Most of it is sent to be added to local landfills, which are among the largest in the world, but the landfills cannot keep up, and it can be costly to transport it to the landfills, so it gets swept out to sea, or ends up in the gutter system, where the piles of clothing clog major drains during Accra’s flood season. Public health experts have said that may ‘increase the risk of diseases like malaria and cholera’
The ‘fast fashion’ waste that ends up in the ocean washes back up onto the beaches, polluting the coastline. UN Goodwill Ambassador Roberta Annan believes “this is a disaster in the making for marine life, because some of the items include toxic dyes, those who drink from these bodies [of water] downstream might…be drinking…chemicals”. Many species of fish are dying off, and waste management experts are becoming concerned about the effects on aquatic life.
The clothing waste poses other hazards, too. Landfills, like the Kpone landfill, have caught fire, and had to be closed.
Besides sending the massive piles to an already-overfull landfill, the only option would be to apply for foreign financing to open a new landfill. The would cause them to be further in debt, increasing the waste colonialism problem.
Will those that created the problem be able (and willing) to create a solution?
