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On Tuesday, some of fashion’s biggest companies launched a new initiative with Ghana-based non-profit The Or Foundation aimed at addressing the problem of “waste colonialism.”
H&M Group, Adidas, Bestseller and Zara-owner Inditex have formed the Apparel Recovery Coalition (ARC), a two-year initiative that will explore how brands can help fund reuse, upcycling, recycling and waste management in countries that receive large volumes of exported secondhand clothing. As part of the coalition, brands will make voluntary financial contributions to support projects spearheaded by the Or Foundation, such as training programmes, environmental remediation and infrastructure investments.
The initiative comes as new regulations, particularly in Europe, are taking aim at the growing levels of waste generated by the fashion industry.
Policymakers want to make fashion companies increasingly responsible for funding the collection and management of clothes they sell once they are discarded. But such extended producer responsibility, or EPR, schemes have faced criticism for focusing spending on the countries where garments are initially sold, even though the waste problem often shows up overseas in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where large volumes of used clothing are exported for resale.
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According to the latest data from the European Environment Agency, exports of used textiles from the EU alone more than doubled between 2005 and 2025 reaching over 1.44 million tonnes last year - with Africa and Asia as the principal destinations.
The Or Foundation, which works in Ghana’s Kantamanto secondhand clothing market, has described this dynamic as “waste colonialism,” arguing that producer responsibility funding should follow garments to the countries that ultimately shoulder the costs of managing the waste.
Over the next two years, ARC plans to develop and test a producer responsibility model that better accounts for these cross-border flows, working with brands, recyclers, policymakers and affected communities. The initiative will initially focus on Ghana, with plans to expand its work to another recipient country in the future.
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