The Daily Telegraph

Unwanted clothes from UK wash up on Ghana beach

- By Antonia Cundy

PILES of unwanted clothing are washing up on beaches in Accra, as new photos show the damage the UK’S “fast fashion” industry is causing in Ghana.

According to environmen­tal experts, the UK’S second-hand clothes market is overwhelme­d by a surplus of poorqualit­y items that cannot be resold.

Some of these are sent to countries on the other side of the world, imports which originally created thriving second-hand markets but are now overwhelmi­ng the recycling infrastruc­ture.

Ghana is one of the main recipients of the UK’S used clothing, 70 per cent of which is sent overseas, according to the sustainabi­lity charity WRAP.

However, nearly half of the imported clothes that Ghana receives cannot be resold because they are either of such low quality or have been personalis­ed as one-off items that no one wants, for example hen party T-shirts or novelty sports kit.

These unwanted items are now being dumped in landfill sites or they end up polluting rivers, beaches and the sea.

Ghana is not the only country being damaged by British citizens’ fast fashion habits, campaigner­s claim. Each year, an estimated 39,000 tons of clothes from developed countries are being dumped in Chile’s Atacama desert.

The United States is the world’s largest second-hand clothes exporter; the UK is the second.

 ?? ?? Discarded second-hand clothes, believed to have come from the United Kingdom, cover the beach in the coastal fishing community of Jamestown in Accra, the capital of Ghana
Discarded second-hand clothes, believed to have come from the United Kingdom, cover the beach in the coastal fishing community of Jamestown in Accra, the capital of Ghana

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