Around 65% of fashion garments produced each year end up in landfills within 12 months and beaches in places like Ghana are being polluted with the world’s cast-offs, writes GlobalData sustainability analyst Holly Anness-Bradshaw.

Fast fashion is one of the world’s most labour-intensive and polluting industries with its complex supply chain contributing around 10% of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions.

A complex supply chain for one garment can begin with materials like cotton being grown in Brazil, to the garment being sewn in factories in Vietnam, to it being shipped to shops and warehouses across the world.

The UN Environment Programme estimates that producing a pair of jeans uses 3,781 litres of water and emits the equivalent of 33.4kg of carbon. And all this for the garment to eventually end up in a landfill. The Clean Clothes Campaign estimates that 65% of the 100bn garments produced annually end up in landfills within 12 months.

Social responsibility in fast fashion’s supply chain 

The labour exploitation associated with fast fashion has been well-known for years. Non-profit Remake estimates that around 80% of garments are made by young women between the ages of 18 and 24. 

In 2018, the US Department of Labor published a report that found evidence of forced and child labour in factories in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Türkiye, and Vietnam.

In 2013, a garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed and killed 1,134 workers and injured another 2,500. Cracks in the building had been found the day before, prompting some in the lower floors of the building to close shops. The garment factories remained open despite the warnings. This disaster highlights the dangers of exploitation in the fashion industry.

Tackling fast fashion as waste

Wastage in the fashion industry is growing as customers consume more. Alongside this, the lifetime of an item of clothing is reducing. Clothing is becoming disposable; a fashion item is often purchased for just a single occasion.

Meanwhile, customers are inundated with options and micro-trends on social media. At one point, ultra-fast fashion brand Shein was putting 6,000 new garments online every day, items that could reach customers within a week.

Comparative to inflation, between 1996 and 2018, the price of clothing in the EU decreased by at least 30%. Consumers are now being able to buy more for less. In 2022, $1tn was spent on clothing sales, and in 2023, this almost doubled to $2tn.

To match this increase, production has also increased. However, many of these garments are being exported back to the countries they were manufactured in. In 2018, it is estimated that the EU exported 1.5m tonnes of clothing to countries in Africa and Asia.

Rise of the secondhand fashion market 

Certain groups are trying to make a difference. The Or Foundation is a charity that was set up in 2011 to improve the fashion industry through education and beach clean-ups. To clean up its supply chain and image, Shein donated $15m to the Or Foundation as part of its extended producer responsibility. This funding drew criticism with many in the industry seeing Shein as one of the biggest producers and polluters contributing to the problem that Or is trying to solve. Liz Ricketts, one of Or’s co-founders wanted to highlight accepting the payment was not an endorsement of Shein but seeing them as paying a bill that was due.

One of the countries that the Or Foundation highlights is Ghana. It reports that Ghana is the world’s leading importer of secondhand clothing. In Accra, the capital city of Ghana, beaches along the coast are becoming home to the world’s fashion cast-offs. At the start of the disposable process in Ghana, the clothes head to a market called Kantamanto located a mile from the beaches in Accra. 

It is one of the world’s largest secondhand markets, where locals call the goods “obroni wawu”, or dead white man’s clothes. Despite the name, it is unlikely that anyone passed away for these clothes to have ended up in Ghana; the bulk of the clothing is fast fashion rejects. 

It is estimated that around 40% of the clothes at the market are unsaleable and make their way down to the beach. Greenpeace estimates that half a million items of clothing from Kantamanto Markets are dumped every week.

What next?

In places like the UK and Germany, the amount of unsold clothing and discarded textiles is becoming overwhelming. The average capture rate across Europe for textile waste is only 12%, indicating that the remaining recyclable material is ending up in landfills or being burnt. But the way textile recycling is carried out across Europe is beginning to change. 

Some countries have introduced Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). In France, Hungary, and the Netherlands, payments are made by producers to help fund the collection, sorting, and recycling of textiles. Introducing more EPRs across the world will hold companies more responsible for waste and hopefully curb the overproduction of garments.

Countries are also beginning to introduce legislation to target fast fashion production. In France, a bill to ban the advertisement of fast fashion was introduced. For fast fashion companies flouting the rules, there are fines of €10 per item sold for clothing items that harm the planet and people. The fines are used to fund waste management and public campaigns, making the public aware of the amount of fashion waste. 

Across the EU, initiatives to stop overconsumption and overproduction are also incoming with measures to discourage the destruction of unsold textiles and restrict exports being included in a review of the Waste Framework Directive. One local fix can be seen in Chile. Every week, Bastián Barria, a civil engineer in Chile, heads to the Atacama Desert to collect discarded clothing he finds in the sands. 

In March 2025, he set up Re-commerce Atacama to raise awareness of textile waste. He sold 300 items at only the cost of shipping to give items a new home and life and raise awareness for the extreme wastage seen in the fashion industry. Calvin Klein jeans and skirts, Nike shorts, and the expected fast fashion brands have all been given a new life.