This aerial view shows the Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana, on November 15, 2023. Kantamanto market is vast, spanning over 20 acres in the heart of Accra's business district, its stalls dominated by used clothing and shoes from the West and China.
Its traders import a staggering 15 million garments a week, according to the OR Foundation environmental group. But roughly 40 percent of each bale ends up as waste, they say, dumped in landfills and often washed into the ocean, causing a public health crisis and harming the environment.
Ghana became the world's largest importer of used clothing in 2021, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) data site, with garments worth $214 million shipped mostly from China, the United Kingdom and Canada. (Photo by Nipah Dennis / AFP)