Ghana grapples with crisis caused by world's throwaway fashion

Ghana is being swamped by millions of unwanted clothes from the West, creating an environmental disaster as textile waste piles up across the country.

About 15 million items of second-hand clothing arrive in Ghana each week. Nearly half cannot be resold. The unsellable clothes end up in informal dumps or are burned in public washhouses, contaminating the air, soil and water.

The report shows how Ghana has become a dumping ground for the world's unwanted textiles, with devastating consequences for local ecosystems. "What we're seeing is environmental racism. The Global North is using Ghana as its trash can," said Helen Dena of Greenpeace Africa.