Obroni Wawu: How Ghana Became the World’s Wardrobe, and Its Wastebasket

 At dawn, Kantamanto wakes before Accra does.
Before the sun fully lifts its head over Accra, Kantamanto is already awake. The sky hangs
bruised blue as the first trucks rumble in, heavy with tightly bound bales, each one packed
with hundreds of garments from faraway homes. Knives flicker, ropes give way, and clothes
spill onto the ground: denim, lace, cotton, polyester, the second lives of millions unfolding at
once. Women squat low, knees bent, backs curved, hands flying, because because here munyi
nu low, munshe nu high, buy it cheap and wear it with pride. 
The early bird does not catch the worm, it catches quality. This is why they call it Ben Down
Boutique. You don’t stroll here. You bend, you search, you hope, because by the time the sun
rises, the best stories will already be worn by someone else.
By 5 a.m., the best pieces are already gone. Joyce has been here for 27 years. She can tell the
quality of a bale by how heavy it feels.
“The old ones,” she says, “they were stronger. You could sell almost everything.”
She shakes her head. “Now, sometimes half is rubbish.”
Still, she comes every morning. So do thousands of others.
A Nation That Wakes Early to Choose the Best
In homes across Ghana, mothers have long sworn by second-hand clothing. Not out of
shame, but out of wisdom.
Obroni wawu, they call it, “the white man is dead.” A joke, yes. But also a belief: that clothes
worn once abroad are often better stitched, heavier, more durable than brand-new items
flooding local shops.
Bras, dresses, children’s shirts, even underwear, are trusted more if they’ve already survived
someone else’s life.
So people wake at down. They board tro-tros before sunrise. They rush to Kantamanto not
because it is cheap, but because quality disappears fast.
What many don’t realize is that this daily ritual places Ghana at the centre of a global system
few countries fully understand.
Ghana: One of the World’s Largest Second-Hand Clothing Destinations
Every week, an estimated 15 million used garments enter Ghana. They arrive packed into
bales from Europe, North America, and Asia, clothes donated, discarded, or dumped after

fast-fashion cycles end abroad. Kantamanto Market alone hosts about 5,000 stalls, supporting
tens of thousands of traders, porters, tailors, and transport workers. Entire families depend on
this trade. Entire neighbourhoods are clothed by it.
For decades, second-hand clothing was a lifeline: affordable, accessible, empowering. It
democratized fashion. It dressed generations. But something has changed, quietly, steadily,
dangerously.
When Thrift Turns Into Trash
Today, traders estimate that up to 40% of imported second-hand clothing is unsellable the
moment the bales are opened. Torn seams. Stains that won’t wash out. Fabrics so thin they
disintegrate after one wear.
These clothes don’t stay in Kantamanto. They move, into gutters, onto beaches, into drains.
They choke waterways like the Korle Lagoon. They pile up on Accra’s coastline, tangled
with seaweed and plastic, shedding microfibres with every wave.
Ghana did not manufacture this waste.
But Ghana is managing its consequences.
The contradiction is stark:
A nation that treasures quality is being flooded with disposables.
A market built on reuse is now overwhelmed by rejection.
The People Caught in Between
The kayayei who carry bales twice their weight do not ask where the clothes came from.
They ask how many trips will earn them a meal.
Traders gamble daily, buying bales blind, hoping this one will be better. Some days they win.
Some days they lose everything.
And yet, creativity thrives in the margins. Young designers cut discarded shirts into new
silhouettes. Tailors rework old denim into something bold, Ghanaian, alive. They prove that
waste is not inevitable, but neglect is.
The Way Forward: Beyond Ben Down Boutique
The solution is not to end second-hand clothing. That would erase livelihoods overnight. The
way forward is responsibility, shared, enforced, and imagined differently.

•  Stricter quality controls at ports to stop waste disguised as donation.

• Extended producer responsibility, forcing global brands to account for where their

clothes end up.

• Investment in textile recycling and upcycling, turning excess into enterprise.

•  Revival of local garment production, blending Ghanaian textiles with modern fashion.

• Education, so thrift remains a choice, not a burden.

More Than Clothes
Tomorrow morning, Kantamanto will wake again. Knives will cut open bales. Hands will dig
for value. Mothers will trust second life over new shine. Traders will hope this one is better.
The question is no longer whether Ghana can keep thrifting.
It is whether the world will stop treating Ghana’s thrift markets like landfills, and whether
we can turn Obroni wawu from a symbol of excess into one of renewal.