What looks like mountains of textile waste, is actually not. It's plastic.

From a distance, it looks like mountains of discarded clothing.

That image has travelled the world — repeated, amplified and turned into a defining narrative about textile waste in Africa. But when we went there, the picture changed completely. What had been described as textile waste was mostly something else. Yet this narrative is already reshaping policy and regulation across Europe — with potentially far-reaching consequences for trade, livelihoods and the future of global textile reuse.

For years, a single idea has dominated the global debate on second-hand clothing: that large volumes of unusable garments are exported from Europe to African countries, where they end up as waste.

The claim is repeated across media, policy papers and public debate. Images of beaches and landfills covered in what appears to be discarded clothing have become emblematic of a system in crisis. The conclusion has seemed obvious. Africa is being used as a dumping ground for discarded clothes from Europe and other parts of the global north.

A picture we have seen before. The shoreline in Accra, Ghana drowning in what appears to be textile waste.

But there is a problem. When we went to the places where this waste is supposed to be — and spoke to the people who live and work there, another story began to emerge.

What is being claimed

The most widely cited figure in the debate is that up to 40 percent of second-hand clothing imported into African countries is unsellable and ends up as waste. In most reports Accra, the capitol of Ghana is used as the worst example of this, with clothes and textile waste piled up on the beaches and in the rivers and landfills.

This number and these images has been used to support calls for stricter regulation of second-hand exports. It has shaped how policymakers, NGOs and the public understand the trade.

But the figure itself is far less solid than it appears.

“That 40% figure has just been continuously recycled and reused throughout media and policymaking. In reality, it comes from a single unpublished study based largely on anecdotal evidence.” These are the words of Jessica Franken. She is the Vice President of Government and External Affairs at SMART, an international industry association representing companies involved in the reuse and recycling of textiles and secondary materials.

“There is a clear gap between what is being claimed in public debate and what the available data actually shows", she says.

In Ghana, those who work in the industry are not so pleased with the way their trade is being portrayed in western media. And in several ways they are now hitting back.

Marlwin Owusu from GUCDA, Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association: "First of all, if 40% of what you import would be trash and unsellable, you wouldn't be able to stay in business for very long. It just doesn't make sense."

Local importers, traders and dealers describe the same reality. "People say 40% is waste. But we sell what we import. That's why we buy it," says Maame Serwaa, Importer and Trader in the Kantamanto Market in Accra.

What we found

If the 40% figure were to be true, the physical impact would be expected to be visible at scale. The scale would be impossible to miss. And yes, this is what the pictures we have seen in the media reflects.

In Accra, Ghana, there are a handful of locations that are repeatedly featured in reports about textile waste.

We went to all of them. We also spoke to traders, workers and people living in the areas.

Jamestown Beach. Korle Lagoon. Landfills and informal dumping grounds.

What we found was indeed waste. But the overwhelming majority of it was plastic, not textile.

The illusion

At first glance, the images make sense. From a distance, large accumulations of waste can look like piles of fabric. But as you get closer, that impression disappears. The closer we looked, the more the visual narrative began to break down. It is not textiles. It is plastic.

Plastic bags. Packaging. Synthetic debris. There are garments present. But they are few.

Across the sites we visited the overwhelming majority is plastic.

Where are the mountains

Across the sites we visited, and in conversations with those working in the trade, we did not find evidence of large scale accumulation of imported textile waste.

Despite its widespread use, the 40 percent figure is rarely accompanied by transparent methodology or clearly referenced underlying data. Requests for clarification around how the number was produced have often yielded limited detail. Yet the figure continues to circulate across media, advocacy and policy discussions.

Once repeated often enough, a number can begin to take on the appearance of fact — regardless of how it was originally derived.

We went to Ghana looking for the mountains of textile waste. But what we found was something very different.

What the data actually shows

When more systematic studies and analyses have been conducted, the picture has often looked very different.

Multiple studies carried out in countries such as Ghana and Kenya — including national analyses and research involving international institutions — point in the same direction: that the share of imported material that cannot be reused is significantly lower than commonly claimed.

Many of these studies were commissioned only after the widely repeated 40 percent figure had already become established in public debate, despite being based largely on anecdotal and non-systematic evidence.

Several were initiated by organisations within the industry itself, partly because little verifiable field data existed at the time. But while these studies are often more systematic and transparent in their methodology than the claims they challenge, they are rarely referenced in mainstream reporting on textile waste exports.

What is already changing

This debate is no longer just about images, media narratives or disputed numbers.

Across Europe and internationally, new rules are now being developed that could fundamentally change how used textiles are collected, sorted, classified and exported. These include stricter requirements on textile sorting, tighter controls on exports within and outside Europe, and discussions under the Basel Convention that could move second-hand clothing further into the realm of waste regulation.

The intention is understandable. No one wants unusable clothing to be dumped on countries with weaker waste systems. But if the underlying assumption is wrong, the consequences could be severe.

“If you shut down these flows, you don’t fix the problem, you break the circular system entirely,” says Jessica Franken. 

Regulations designed to stop waste exports may instead restrict the movement of reusable clothing. They could make it harder to redistribute surplus garments, increase the amount of textiles sent to incineration or landfill in Europe, weaken an existing circular trade, and reduce access to affordable clothing and livelihoods in countries that depend on the second-hand sector.

In other words, policies meant to fix one problem may end up damaging one of the systems already helping to reduce it.

Written and produced by 

Thomas Lundkvist

Studies & Reports: All studies and reports mentioned in the article you can read and download here: Reports

Read more: The missing logic behind the textile waste claims

Everyone talks about textile waste exports. Nobody can explain the business model How did an unverified claim become a global truth and reshape global policy