Companies produce more clothing than we buy. We buy more clothing than we wear.
Companies produce more clothing than we buy. We buy more clothing than we wear.
The fashion industry produces over 100 billion garments each year for 8 billion humansLinks to an external site..
More than 50% of these garments are donated or discarded within one year.
Fashion today is made primarily from petrochemical-based synthetics. Consumers use these materials (and occasionally recycle them) but since they don’t decompose, the materials always end up as macro- or micro-scale pollution.
landfill-12-1 Ghana.jpg
Fifteen million used garments from North America, the UK, Europe, and elsewhere are exported to Ghana weekly. About 40% end up in informal dumps like this one on the edge of Old Fadama and the Korle Lagoon in Accra.
Dead White Man’s Clothes is the translation of the Akan expression Obroni Wawu, which is a common term for secondhand clothes in Ghana meaning ‘the white man has died clothes.’ This expression comes from the idea that someone would have to die to give up so much stuff, implying that the concept of excess was foreign.
Assignment:
Watch the videos in order and then visit the project website https://deadwhitemansclothes.org/Links to an external site. and read this report Download read this reportif you would like to know more about the organization and their research. You could also do some research of your own on Fast Fashion in the US, Canada and Europe.
While watching– Deeply contemplate your own closets and your purchase and waste habits with clothing. Where do you fit into this equation? As Individuals we can change our buying habits and vote with our wallets for a more sustainable clothing industry… but how do we also hold the producers/manufacturers accountable for such devestation as this? How do we turn this megolith that is fashion around? An industry that is just as much about human cultural and social and emotional issues as it is about unsustainable use of natural captial and waste.
Osu Beach – Accra, Ghana – January, 2020
https://youtu.be/kOn1CVUF6T4Links to an external site.
Links to an external site.
Dead White Man’s Clothes – Atmos | Part 1: A Closet Full of Clothes
https://youtu.be/UpIMFker8MgLinks to an external site.
Dead White Man’s Clothes – Atmos | Part 2: She Who Carries the Burden
https://youtu.be/4ZcoBbwVFYcLinks to an external site.
We Are Human Beings – The Waste Pickers’ Perspective
The members of the Kpone Landfill Waste Pickers Association are cleaning up a mess not of their own making. How will we honor their effort?
https://youtu.be/wahLuZvcVnMLinks to an external site.
Dead White Man’s Clothes – Atmos | Part 4: A Planet Full of Waste Waste is built into the business model of fashion, and yet this inevitable byproduct of production is an afterthought. As a society we tend to think of “the away” as a mythical place where stuff just “goes” because for most of us this waste is out of sight, out of mind. But after years of tracking Kantamanto’s waste, digging through dumpsites and climbing landfills, we can tell you that “the away” does exist. The places where our waste ends up are on google maps, you can drop a pin & friends can join you there. This is important because what may be shocking, or unreal, to us is everyday reality for the millions of people who call “The Away” home.
https://youtu.be/IMKEdLrey8wLinks to an external site.
Our Long Recovery – Land on Fire
In August 2019 Kpone Landfill in Ghana caught fire and we happened to be there. Never before has it been more clear that our obsession with convenience, competition and accumulation is making us sick. The Global North has generated an absurd amount of stuff and this excess has disproportionately impacted the Global South.
https://youtu.be/J6J9EfOdPggLinks to an external site.
The secondhand clothes that end up in Accra begin their journey to the largest secondhand
clothing market in the world based on the decisions of people in the Global North – namely
the USA, Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia and increasingly China, Korea, Saudi Arabia
and the UAE, among other countries.
The secondhand clothing trade is not charity and it is not recycling. The secondhand clothing trade is a supply chain.
There are two initial pathways to this journey, where the waste first changes hands along the chain of custody.
First, some clothing enters the wastestream as a donation from one of us thinking it is going to go to someone else here in the United States possibly at a local thrift store- this is not always the case.
The next method is much more prolofic– clothing enters the wastestream as “deadstock and returns” when the retailer of firsthand clothing decides to cycle in new garments to their collection and to remove what has not yet sold from their stores. This may also include returns from customers dissatisfied with their purchase.
Some retailers send the unsold items and returns directly to landfill.
A growing number of brands have partnerships with clothing collectors and exporters to manage their unwanted items, either by finding a means to downcycle or recycle them, or by moving them into foreign secondhand markets where the clothing is not seen to be in competition with new garments in the retailers’ stores. Do you have a favorite brand? What do they do with their deadstock and returns? How can we find out?
The organization that developed this research has said:
“In nearly every conversation we’ve ever been a part of with people in the Global North
regarding the manifestation of fashion’s waste crisis in Accra, someone have asked, “why
doesn’t Ghana just ban secondhand clothing imports.”
But no one has ever asked us “why doesn’t the US or Europe ban secondhand clothing exports?”
No one has ever asked us, “why doesn’t the US or Europe ban the importation of new clothing?”
What are your thoughts here? Where is the root of this crisis? What are some solutions? Who is ultimately responsible?
The story of fashion’s waste crisis is not one of problem and one solution. It is a story with many different characters with diverse intentions,
needs and desires in tension. It is a story of conflict between the mental, cultural, industrial and physical landscapes of this moment within a retail clothing wastestream that seems daunting and beyond control.
The landscape here in Ghana can be understood from multiple perspectives:
Within it there is an ecological landscape , where The Away is ever present and where toxins
leach far and wide, where the once pristine shoreline, which in distant memory was plentiful
with sea turtles and fish to grab with a bare hand, is now a living museum to the
anthropocene, with clothing embedded deep into the sands and surfing in the waves. Where
a sacred lagoon with water that was once clean enough to drink, is now the dumping ground
for fashion waste from around the world.
There is a socio-economic landscape , where the people causing the problems of overflowing
waste have more agency in urban politics and global trade routes than the people who are
dealing with the mess in their everyday lives, trying to keep their feet out of the muck and
salvaging whatever they can to reuse and reclaim value. Where agency is tied to the
financial wealth, given to those who can continuously buy products and services along a
linear vision of growth.
There is a mental landscape , where behaviors are shaped by the insecurities spawned of
decontextualized images linking value to appearance, discounting the rough resourcefulness
borne of necessity and idolizing the polished façade of excess – the idea of having more
than is necessary for survival, more than the other, the idea of fitting in, the idea of standing
out, the comparison offering a fragile sense of security purchased with currency at the
expense of community. Where brands produce marketing campaigns that collapse many
contexts into one dehumanized narrative where the frontier is everywhere and reality is
nowhere.
_____________________________________________________
Too much clothing. Not enough ______.
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The Dead White Man’s Clothes Project states:
The Dead White Man’s Clothes Project offers a visible diagnosis of our disposability.
By tracking the waste generated by the secondhand clothing economy in Accra, Ghana
we have proven that there is no market capable of absorbing the excess of our modern lifestyle.
We have failed to prioritize that which makes us human. We have buried our potential under a pile of stuff.
That stuff has become rubbish. That rubbish is staring back at us and we are realizing that we have rendered ourselves disposable.
As artifacts of our lives, waste makes visible our values, behaviors and priorities.
We have tried to buy our way out of our insecurities, but when these material things fail to make us whole we toss them aside.
We create physical byproducts of every relationship by expressing love through the exchange of objects instead of through the spending of time.
We aid one another by donating our excess things instead of fighting against the causes of this imbalance.
Your Assignment
In this discussion, please first select and respond to one of the statements/sentences above that struck you and explain why or explain how it makes you feel. If you find you disagree with a statement, say so and explain why.
And then, please read the passage below– and in the discussion, post the passage and fill in the blanks with your own chosen words.
OUR LONG RECOVERY
We have
Too much clothing. Not enough culture.
Too much clothing. Not enough fashion.
Too much clothing. Not enough innovation.
Too much clothing. Not enough ________
We are
Too often a consumer. So rarely a human.
Too often a consumer. So rarely a citizen.
Too often a consumer. So rarely a neighbor.
Too often a consumer. So rarely a _______
We must recover from these ideas and re-discover our potential to connect, to overcome, to commune, to love, to understand, to coop
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