How Kenya and Ghana became central to Europe’s second-hand clothing policy debate

Europe’s debate over textile waste and circularity is increasingly framed around responsibility: what happens to unwanted clothing once it leaves EU borders, and who bears the economic and environmental cost of overproduction. Yet the countries most often placed at the centre of this debate are not European. They are Kenya and Ghana.

From Accra’s Kantamanto market to Nairobi’s Gikomba, second-hand clothing flows have become highly visible symbols in a discussion driven largely by European policy choices, including fast fashion volumes, upcoming textile EPR schemes, and growing pressure to regulate exports.

African markets have become the battleground for Europe’s circular economy credibility.

Competing narratives and limited evidence on second-hand clothing exports

Gikomba, one of the largest second-hand markets in the world.

Recent media coverage around Nairobi Fashion Week illustrates how sharply these flows are framed. Some reports describe Kenya as being overwhelmed by imported clothing, portraying the country as a dumping ground for the Global North. Others highlight the same markets as essential economic infrastructure, sustaining livelihoods and supplying material for reuse and upcycling.

What is often missing is verification.

Claims that second-hand clothing exports primarily constitute waste dumping remain widely contested by both industry actors and academic research in textile reuse and trade. While quality challenges and waste management pressures exist, evidence consistently points to mixed-quality streams, functioning resale markets, and significant local value creation. The narrative, in other words, is far from settled.

Reuse News has covered this issue in several articles. Here is one of them: The elusive truth behind the second-hand export debate

Accra, Ghana: What from a distance look like textiles is actually plastic

Europe’s textile policy and its impact on second-hand clothing exports

This matters because Europe is entering a decisive phase on textiles.

Extended Producer Responsibility systems are being rolled out across the EU, while exports of used textiles are moving higher on the regulatory agenda through Basel Convention–related discussions and tighter waste classifications.

In this context, Kenya and Ghana become more than destinations. They become arguments.

Images from African markets are increasingly used to support policy positions in Europe, either to justify export restrictions or to defend the legitimacy of second-hand trade.

Second-hand markets as active economies, not waste endpoints

Markets like Kantamanto and Gikomba are not passive endpoints of European waste. They are active second-hand economies, deeply embedded in local consumption, employment, and repair systems.

Reducing them to a single waste narrative risks obscuring key structural drivers upstream: overproduction, declining garment quality, and Europe’s limited domestic capacity for textile reuse and recycling.

As the EU seeks to assert leadership on circular textiles, the legitimacy of second-hand trade will be one of the most contested issues ahead.

Kenya and Ghana may sit at the centre of the story.

But the debate shaping their future is, fundamentally, a European one.