About YouthOvaFashionWaste

Fashion waste has become one of the most urgent environmental and social justice challenges facing Ghana. Every week, an estimated 15 million garments arrive in Accra’s secondhand markets from the Global North, with nearly 40% immediately discarded due to poor quality. These discarded clothes pile up in landfills, clog drains, litter beaches, and leach toxic microfibers into rivers and lagoons. The burning of excess clothing further releases harmful toxins into the atmosphere, increasing the risk of respiratory infections and contributing to climate change.

Anne Whiting’s Pulitzer Center–supported reporting on fashion waste and waste colonialism: Secondhand Synthetics, Sinister Secret brings global attention to this crisis. Her work documents how discarded garments overwhelm Accra’s coastlines and lagoons, disintegrating into microplastics that infiltrate food chains, ecosystems, and public health. This story frames the issue as waste colonialism, where wealthier nations export their fashion excesses to Ghana and other Global South countries under the guise of trade, leaving behind ecological devastation and economic burden.

Despite the growing awareness of plastic pollution in Ghana, the issue of fashion waste remains under-discussed in public and policy discourse. Communities directly affected, such as fisherfolk and coastal dwellers, witness firsthand the damage caused by mounds of discarded garments, yet their voices are often excluded from decision-making spaces. Youth, who represent the generation most affected by environmental degradation, also lack platforms to amplify their ideas and contribute meaningfully to sustainable solutions. Without targeted awareness, creative advocacy, and policy engagement, Ghana risks continued entrenchment in a cycle of dependency and pollution driven by fast fashion and secondhand clothing imports.

Against this backdrop, the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM) seeks to support the efforts of young professionals to address the intersection of fashion waste, climate change, and environmental justice through the YouthOvaFashionWaste Webinar & Digital Contest Campaign.