Second-hand clothing trade is a common practice across African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, and Uganda. In Ghana, these clothes are called Obroni Wawu, to mean “dead white man’s clothes”. The term for the same is mitumba in Kenya and Tanzania, madunusa in South Africa, and Okrika in Nigeria.
The popularity of second-hand textile markets like Kantamanto and Gikomba markets in Ghana and Kenya respectively, and the revenue earned from this trade portrays how deeply second-hand clothes have been embraced on the continent.
Most consumers prefer these items because they are more affordable compared to locally made garments, which they perceive to be overpriced. A section of these favour thrifted clothes because they offer better variety than locally manufactured apparel. Then there is a small percentage of this population that opts for thrifted clothes to promote environmental sustainability.
However, the quality of second-hand clothes has been gradually declining, with the majority of imports ending up in landfills either because they are too damaged or outdated to be resold. This has sparked legitimate concern as to whether second-hand fashion is evolving into fast fashion.
In 2021, about 458 million of the 900 million used clothing imported in Kenya were worthless. A recent report on the Kenyan thrift market further confirmed this deterioration by mentioning how traders had to part with approximately 20-50% of clothes in bales due to their flawed conditions.
The fashion waste problem has been exacerbated by the unsustainable practices perpetrated by fast fashion brands, such as dumping their dead stock disguised as affordable wear in African countries. The bulk of this dead stock ends up being discarded due to its obsolescence. This overproduction results in overconsumption and breeds a throwaway culture. However, many African countries lack the proper infrastructure to dispose of the waste adequately, endangering the environment and the health of Africans.
The impact of fashion waste on the planet in the aftermath of fast fashion cannot be understated. Fast fashion is responsible for overconsumption of water resources and this practice, along with the resulting fashion waste, is to blame for extensive water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in Africa.
Textile production already consumes high volumes of water. A recent study found that the rapidly growing global population has doubled textile production in the last two decades. As a result, the demand for water has risen significantly.
For context, water is essential in textile wet processing, which involves pretreatment, dyeing, printing, laundry, and finishing. This process utilises 85% of the textile supply chain’s water stock. The United Nations confirms as much by stating that the amount of water used to manufacture a pair of jeans – 8,000 litres – is equivalent to one person’s drinking water for roughly seven years.
In a wider context, fast fashion promotes mass production of garments based on trends. This means that consumers are quick to dump clothes when a new trend surfaces and to meet the demand, fast fashion brands continue the cycle, exacerbating water resource overconsumption.
Water overuse is disruptive to the ecosystem in various ways. For one, it causes water scarcity, limiting access to fresh and clean water across global communities. Inadequate access to water for drinking, agriculture, cooking, or cleaning increases the risk of water-related illnesses and food insecurity.
Animals depend on fresh water for survival too. Water shortage triggered by overuse of water in textile and apparel production limits this resource and threatens the existence of animal species, subsequently damaging the ecological balance.