The European Parliament has approved new legislation obliging fashion brands to finance the collection, sorting and recycling of textiles sold within the bloc. The measure, adopted as part of a revision of the EU Waste Framework Directive, marks the most significant regulatory shift yet for a sector long criticized for its environmental footprint. While intended to reduce Europe’s mounting textile waste, the law is likely to have far-reaching consequences for African countries, many of which are central nodes in the global second-hand clothing trade.
The directive responds to Europe’s escalating waste crisis. The EU generates more than 12 million tones of textile waste annually, including 5.2 million tones of clothing and footwear. Less than a quarter is collected separately for reuse or recycling; the rest is landfilled, incinerated, or exported. In recent years, a growing proportion of this waste has been shipped abroad, with Africa among the largest recipients. These flows have been controversial, as imports marketed as second-hand goods often contain large volumes of garments unfit for resale, creating environmental stress for local municipalities ill-equipped to manage the excess.
Ghana illustrates the scale of the problem. The Kantamanto market in Accra, one of the world’s largest second-hand hubs, receives millions of imported garments each week. Traders repair and resell what they can, but mountains of unsellable items end up in landfills, waterways, and wetlands. Investigations earlier this year documented discarded fast-fashion garments strewn across the Densu delta, a protected ecosystem, underscoring how the global waste trade intersects with local environmental fragility. For communities living near such sites, the social and ecological costs are immediate and severe.
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By obliging producers to pay into extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, the EU hopes to stem this tide. Fees will be structured to reward durability and circular design, creating financial incentives for brands to make longer-lasting products. In principle, this should reduce the supply of low-quality garments that dominate the used-clothing trade and relieve pressure on receiving countries. Environmental campaigners argue that the law addresses decades of externalization, in which wealthy consumers and companies avoided responsibility for the afterlife of their products.
At the same time, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) recently introduced its draft Textiles and Apparel Sector Standard, which seeks to establish tailored disclosure requirements for one of the world’s most resource-intensive industries. The draft identifies a wide range of material issues, from water use, chemical management, and waste, to labor rights, traceability and worker health, underscoring the sector’s far-reaching impact. For Africa, where both informal second-hand markets and emerging garment factories play central roles, these reporting expectations signal that transparency and accountability will soon be as important as affordability.
If embraced strategically, the alignment of the EU’s regulatory push with GRI’s reporting framework could provide African stakeholders, from governments to small manufacturers, with leverage to attract sustainable investment and meet international buyer requirements. By demonstrating compliance with global disclosure standards, African producers could gain competitive advantage in supplying ethical fashion markets, while local policymakers could frame these tools as benchmarks for upgrading domestic industries. Conversely, failure to engage risks leaving Africa further marginalized in the shift toward sustainable fashion supply chains.
The likely impact in Africa is more complex. Informal economies built around second-hand clothing sustain millions of livelihoods across the continent. In Nairobi’s Gikomba market and Accra’s Kantamanto, traders, tailors and porters depend on steady inflows of affordable garments. For low-income consumers, these imports often represent the only affordable access to clothing. A sharp contraction in volumes, should the EU law be implemented rigorously, risks destabilising these markets unless parallel investments are made in local textile industries and recycling infrastructure.
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Still, the transition could open new opportunities. Across Africa, designers and entrepreneurs are experimenting with upcycling, textile-to-fibre innovations and small-scale recycling ventures. With strategic investment, the reduction of Europe’s waste exports could catalyse the growth of domestic circular economies. Regional frameworks such as the African Union’s Continental Circular Economy Action Plan, coupled with financing channels like the EU’s Global Gateway initiative, offer potential vehicles for scaling these efforts. By aligning regulatory change in Europe with green investment in Africa, policymakers could transform a challenge into a foundation for new industries.
Execution will be critical. The directive allows member states up to 30 months to establish their EPR systems, and questions remain over how collected funds will be used. If the schemes are narrowly applied within Europe, Africa may continue to shoulder residual waste flows without adequate support. Conversely, if EPR revenues help finance infrastructure and skills development in trading partner countries, the benefits could be shared more equitably. For African governments, the moment presents an opportunity to tighten import standards, incentivise local production, and protect informal workers who could be displaced by changing trade dynamics.
What happens next will determine whether the law is a turning point or a missed opportunity. Europe has acknowledged its responsibility for managing the environmental costs of fast fashion. For Africa, the question is whether this recognition translates into fewer containers of unsellable clothes arriving at ports, and into tangible investments that support the continent’s own path toward a sustainable textile economy.
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