A visual demonstration of the 144 million tonnes of textile waste produced yearly greeted delegates as they entered COP26’s Blue Zone earlier last month.
The exhibition, called ‘Generation of Waste’, was a visual bar chart showing how much textile waste is produced by the fashion industry. The bar chart was created by Sustainable Fashion Scotland, luxury sustainable designers Beira and the Zero Waste Design Online (ZWDO) Collective.
Prominently featured in the delegates-only inner zone of COP26, the exhibit showed the eight stages of the textile value chain:
Design
Raw Materials
Fabric production
Garment production
Distribution
Retail
Use
End of life
The Scotland-based collective explained on the GenerationOfWaste website that they chose a bar chart to “speak in the language of world leaders and policy makers, acting as an entry point to those whose understanding of fashion is just beginning.”
The majority of textile waste occurs at the ‘End of Life’ stage, with a waste value of $52.65 million. This stage of the chain produces 67.70 million tonnes of waste, according to the website. Bobby Kolade, co-host of Ugandan podcast ‘Vintage or Violence’ and fashion designer, said Uganda is “flooded” by secondhand clothes from the Global North.
“Secondhand clothes that people in richer countries throw away... are shipped to Uganda and sold for dirt cheap,” said Kolade. “It’s impossible to compete against secondhand clothes here.”
These clothes eventually end up in landfill, but in the Global South instead of the Global North, because people in Uganda have also started to over consume fast fashion. “Your consumption,” said Kolade, “is our problem.”
Similarly in Ghana, the Kantamanto Market in Accra apparently has 15 million secondhand garments moving through it every week, 40% of which leave as waste. Liz Ricketts, Co-founder and Director of The Or Foundation, said this waste is not because the items are unwearable, but because they are of such low-quality that the vendors will not make a profit from them.
The landfill in Accra is now overflowing, and millions of clothing items and shoes are dumped into the Gulf of Guinea or buried in the sand, as shown in a film produced by Atmos.earth and The Or Foundation. The film also states that clothing clogs the sewers and increases the risk of diseases like malaria and cholera.
The Or Foundation, a charity based in Ghana and the USA, said it is working on several areas to improve the textiles economy in Accra. Some of their approaches to this include capturing and processing textiles for recycling, and promoting advocacy and awareness to “shape policy and consumer behaviour”.
Garment production was another stage of the process with high levels of waste. More than 36 million tonnes of textile waste are produced at this fourth stage, with a value of $28 million. The waste mainly comes from “cutting scraps, fabric roll ends, big cut pieces, unfinished garments, defected/rejected garments, and overproduction.”
Members of the Kpone Landfill Waste Pickers Association of Ghana, Chairman Johnson Doe and Secretary Divine Dekonor, spoke about the issues they face in a video on the GW website. Doe said there needed to be greater recognition of the work litter pickers do, and the contributions they make to the environment and economy. These workers need to be recognised by the government, and change needs to start “from above”, explained Doe.
Waste was not discussed in detail at COP26, despite its environmental impact. Dr Adam Read, President of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), was “stumped” when he found out resources and waste were left off the agenda.
Read said: “the fact that the UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 (COP26) hasn’t fully recognised the integral part the resources and waste sector has to play in helping to reach net zero targets, not just in the UK, but globally, is a critical oversight on their part.”
Recycling Association chief executive Simon Ellin was also disappointed at the lack of discussion around waste management in relation to climate change. However, he said we should appreciate that COP26 was still “a step forward.”
Read shared this sentiment, and expressed his gratitude that “those working in the UK waste and resources industry are committed to moving to a world beyond waste and driving change, despite the apparent lack of recognition on the international stage.”
The Generation of Waste exhibit will be recreated online, and will also be taken on tour after COP26.
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