By: Laura Gattis
This summer, I’m working with the University of Ghana’s Institute for Environment and Sanitation. They’ve got a project, nicknamed C2R-CD, that’s helping understand how diarrhea is transmitted in Ghana, and how communities can limit outbreaks. In Ghana (and many other developing or low-income communities), diarrhea can still be deadly, with limited access to clean water or medical care.
The Coastal Communities Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea is a long-term project that I was lucky to play a minute role in this summer. Helping with files, attending community meetings in neighborhoods across Accra, and participating in grant proposals for additional funding, I spent the summer learning about the distinct impact of climate change in this coastal country.
After five weeks of learning about the transdisciplinary processes being used to research and provide solutions for these communities, I went to Kantamanto Market.
I went alone the first time, walking the crowded streets, dodging the uneven gaps and teetering along small wooden planks that covered larger dips in the earth. Kantamanto Market is one of the largest secondhand markets in the world, boasting more than 30,000 vendors specializing in primarily used clothing.
Years ago, long before visiting Ghana was even a thought in my mind, I learned about the ‘dead white man’s clothes’. According to ABC Australia, about 15 million pieces of clothing enter Accra every week – and most of it begins (or ends) their journey at Kantamanto Market.
I went mid-day, the ground already covered in discarded clothes, people sifting through piles of clothes that spilled out of bales labeled with phrases like ‘Canada, men’s casual shirts’ and ‘Britain, women’s tanktops’.
Accra is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen, the weather warm and sticky, the people smiling and sharing bowls of jollof rice, and kids chasing each other through the streets. But in one corner of the city, the impact of fast fashion was overwhelmingly obvious to me.
Huge piles of unwearable clothing were being swept up by trash trucks, taken to landfills where they’d sit, barely decomposing even after decades. I didn’t take photos, aside from over panorama view of the market from a building. It felt wrong to take photos of these people, working harder than I’ve ever had to and making far less than I can fathom living off of.
I struggled with the amount of clothing spilling out of stalls. In one stall, a bale labeled Canadian men’s shirts were filled with t-shirts from Ohio schools, events, and political races. The vendor explained that the country on the bales doesn’t matter, that they know the clothes shuffle around different countries before ending up in Accra.
They nickname the clothes obroni wawu, or dead white man’s clothes. The name is based on a local idea that for these clothes to have ended up here, a dead white man must have worn them, because otherwise, why would anyone discard perfectly good clothes?
A huge portion of the clothes I saw vendors digging through was trash, filled with rips, stains of unknown origin, or so far out-of-style that vendors knew they couldn’t sell them.
I really think ABC Australia does a far better job of explaining the market than I ever could, and I implore you to read this: Dead White Man’s Clothes.
A lot of this clothing comes from charities we donate our clothes to, thinking we’re doing something positive. The clothes we donate can end up in other countries in alarming numbers, creating jobs, but also creating landfill waste our country largely gets to avoid thinking about.
When I got home that night and sat down to journal, I held back tears. I was angry at the system, at fast fashion, at the richest countries pushing off their discarded clothing onto developing countries.
I spend most of my time researching climate change and sustainability as my research focus in the SOJC for my Ph.D., and being confronted with thousands of stalls filled with our trash and used clothing was distressing.
The people are happy, and women travel from rural regions in Accra for a chance to make a little bit of money to send home. I know this is a crucial part of the economy for 2.5 million people (a number the market’s association claims, but which nobody seems to be able to verify). If the 2.5 million jobs are true, removing the obroni wawu doesn’t fix the problem. I don’t know how you limit the disposal of clothing to developing countries (I know Ghana is NOT unique in being the recipients of wealthy countries trash), but there has to be a better solution that starts at home.
If we just bought less clothing and bought high-quality pieces when we did buy first-hand, would we limit the amount of fast fashion that has to be discarded? If we kept the clothes we had and bought them second-hand, would we help? Eugene has seemingly infinite secondhand shops, and utilizing them would support local businesses while limiting our environmental impact.
After hours of walking, stopping to gawk at Goodwill tags, Oregon State University shirts, and wedding dresses, I clumsily navigated my way to the tro tro station, ready to head home, aware of the fast fashion in my suitcase and vowing to embrace the thrift shops in Eugene over the Valley River Center and Oakway stores.