The Tamesis
This article is part of our “Ghana (re)manufacturing” series, explores what one of the world’s largest circular fashion ecosystems – Cantamento Market – can teach us about the future of fashion. Read our “Made in Italy” series here“Made in India” hereand ‘Made in Britain’ here.
A few years ago, Ghanaian-American nonprofit The Or Foundation tried to partner with a European textile recycling startup. This is a common sense pairing. Ghana has a large stock of second-hand textiles, receiving approximately 15 million garments from Northern Hemisphere countries every week, most of which cannot be re-worn or repurposed. Recyclers, on the other hand, need feedstock, and lots of it. But an unexpected bump in the road exposed systemic barriers to circular fashion: Global shipping regulations were not designed for a circular economy, and now they are hindering progress.
Shipping codes or Harmonized System (HS) codes were developed by the World Customs Organization in 1983 to help customs officials understand global trade. There are more than 5,000 of these six-digit codes, which are used to classify products imported and exported between jurisdictions and determine which taxes and duties are payable.
“HS codes are critical to every movement of materials across borders because they allow customs to know what is being exported and imported,” said Branson Skinner, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Or Foundation. “If you trade new clothing, there are hundreds of codes, and they’re super segmented, from fiber type to garment type and any number of other nuances.” However, there are only a few options for round products. As a result, Skinner said, HS coding in this area of fashion is no longer applicable. “For second-hand goods, you [have to] accept all of this [nuance] Then you scramble it into a single code, which currently encapsulates everything. When it comes to transparency and traceability, we are not setting ourselves up for success. “
Ghana’s Kantamanto Market is home to hundreds of upcycling designers, but their potential to export their products is hampered by shipping regulations that are not designed for recycling.Photo: Bella Weber
Used clothes collected by the Or Foundation are imported into Ghana under HS6309, which covers used clothes and other used items. Skinner said that although the Or Foundation collects waste textiles from dealers in local markets, sorts them by color and fiber type, pre-processes them to remove facings and fasteners, and cuts them into panels ready for recycling, its only option is to re-export them under the same HS code because there is no other option that recognizes the added value.
In the eyes of customs officials, these materials are still just worn-out items, regardless of whether they have been processed or not, and exporting them under the same code as imported items would raise suspicion, causing a host of additional problems at customs. “This creates significant hurdles at customs and brings additional scrutiny, which significantly limits our ability to explore global recycling partnerships,” Skinner said.
