There is markedly less waste in shipments of second-hand clothing to Ghana than has been claimed in media reports, the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association (GUCDA) found in a wide-ranging study. Its findings showed that less than 5 per cent of the material in imported second-hand clothing bales could be considered waste. A considerable majority, 73 per cent, of the traders interviewed for the report said that the baled material they received, locally known as mitumba, contained 0 to 4 per cent waste, while 56 per cent of traders said that the bales contained at most 1 per cent waste.
This demonstrated that "international perception is not only wrong, but economically unsound and deeply patronising," the association said in comments on the study entitled "An evaluation of the socio-economic and environmental impact of the second-hand clothes trade in Ghana"....
