Is fast fashion creating a textile waste crisis?

Last week, Greenpeace Africa published their new report “Fast Fashion, Slow Poison: The Toxic Textile Crisis in Ghana”. The report outlines the shocking environmental and public health impact of the second-hand clothing industry in Ghana - revealing that every week, up to half a million items of clothing from the Kantamanto Market in Accra end up discarded in open spaces and informal dumpsites.
Bertie speaks to the report's author, Sam Quashie-Idun, about his findings, who is responsible for the harmful textile imports and what can be done to alleviate the problem.
Sam Quashie-Idun is Head of Investigations at Greenpeace Africa and a member of Land and Climate Review's investigations unit.

You can read the report here (greenpeace.org/static/planet4-africa-stateless…) and watch Sam’s Instagram video summarising its findings here (instagram.com/reel/C_xfecMPpV9/?igsh=Z2E3M3oxN…).

Further reading:
• Poisoned Gifts (greenpeace.de/publikationen/220421-greenpeace-…), Greenpeace, 2023
• How to Ensure Waste Colonialism is Not Written Into Law and That Fashion’s Biggest Polluters Have to Change (theordev2.s3.amazonaws.com/2024-01/TheOrFounda…), The Or Foundation, 2023
• ‘‘It’s like a death pit’: how Ghana became fast fashion’s dumping ground’ (theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/05…), The Guardian, 2023
• ‘European secondary textile sector ‘on the brink of collapse’’ (recyclinginternational.com/commodities/textile…), Recycling International, 2024
Send us Fan Mail (buzzsprout.com/1695859/fan_mail/new)
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at landclimate.org