It ain't fashion, if it ain't sustainable

Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association

SecondHand / Ghana Strike

14 April 2025

4 minutes

The one-day strike on 11 April saw hundreds of Kantamanto traders close their stalls and take to the streets of Accra, calling on the OR Foundation and its partners to respect their trade.

Or Foundation's 'Misinformation Campaign' Condemned, Ghana Second-Hand Clothing Traders Observe Strike

Ghana’s second-hand Kantamanto Market is protesting the “ongoing misrepresentation, including false claims” that it is a “waste dumping ground,” condemning the “hypocrisy and misinformation campaign” of a US-based NGO.

Staff Writer

Deep Focus / Africa Seconds / V

14 June 2024

4 minutes

The main finding of this study is that the growth of SHC imports in the five countries of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, has had a positive impact on the labour market. The SHC industry is an employment creation engine in Africa, generating millions of jobs throughout the value and supply chain. Over 1.28 million people are employed in the SHC sectors in these countries with each tonne of SHC imported sustaining on average 6.5 jobs.

Widely Ignored: The Question of Livelihoods and that of Affordable Clothing

The last piece in this five-part series on the twin subjects of the second-hand clothing in Africa and that of post-consumer textile waste in the content emphasises that the two are, of course, related, but not in the way that Western activists would like us to believe.

Subir Ghosh

Commentary

Spotlight: Africa Seconds

SecondHand / Ghana Study

15 May 2024

4 minutes

In 2022 and 2021 the major sources of Ghana’s used clothing imports were the United Kingdom, China, Canada, Poland, and the Netherlands. The dependence on a diverse set of countries for imports reflects the global nature of the SHC trade.

Ghana Study Says Media Reports of Waste Grossly Over-Estimated; It’s Only 5% of Total Second-Hand Clothing Imports

Media reports on the amount of textile waste being imported into African countries is much lower than the estimated 40% or more with less than 5% of the imports to Ghana could be considered waste.