It’s no secret that as a society, we have a serious problem with fast fashion – and the dirty laundry of this wasteful obsession ends up, quite literally, in Ghana. The Guardian reports that Ghana imports roughly 15 million items of secondhand clothing per week, which are sold to vendors such as those of Accra’s sprawling Kantamanto Market. This bustling industry provides livelihoods, particularly for women, and some of this clothing gets resold or repurposed. But nearly half of it becomes waste, harming communities and ecosystems. Much of the waste is burnt, polluting the air, or is piled up into informal landfills where it pollutes waterways. Photojournalist Natalija Gormalova investigates the human and environmental cost of Ghana’s garment graveyards.
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