"150.000 tonnes of second-hand clothing enter Ghana annually" (H. Treku, Landfills2Landmarks)

What are Landfills2Landmarks' activities?

Landfills2Landmarks is a working summit for the secondary textile sector. We bring together public authorities, trade institutions, market actors, brands, standard bodies and investors to address a critical gap that has been under-examined for many years: that is, what happens after exports, how quality is interpreted in receiving markets, and how end of life is managed.

Regardless of what regulations are in place in Europe, textiles will always come to an end-of-life. The downstream evidence is critical in understanding what is needed to support better regulation and investment. This is what the Landfills2Landmarks Summit 2026 seeks to do.

We have built the world's first downstream traceability tool to track exports from Europe into downstream markets. What we are saying to partners is that the evidence needed for accountability in upstream — where unsorted textiles, mixed fibres, and their performance in markets need to be understood — must be evidenced in downstream. The goal is to leverage the systems we have built downstream to bring better evidence to the forefront and to refine sorting upstream.

Which regulations are you focusing on?

The EU Waste Framework Directive, which was amended in October 2025, is central. There is obviously a need for the separation of textiles to be treated as waste and sorted before shipment. And quite recently, the ban on the destruction of unsold apparel and accessories. What this means for downstream markets is that there will be additional external pressures, because more collectors and exporters will need to find external markets to tackle the issues they are now facing.

We are looking at how these measures will impact downstream markets in the future, particularly in Ghana. The costs of recovery of textiles in downstream markets do not always travel with the products when they arrive. We are therefore also looking at downstream regulations that would mitigate some of these issues, including local EPR schemes, because we believe it will be critical.

We believe that over the years, upstream regulations have informed what happens downstream, but it should be the other way round. A lot of the evidence is happening downstream, and the focus has to be there to understand the data gap, build the required evidence base, and understand what sort of funding is needed to bring textiles at the end-of-life into better management to inform upstream sorting practices. We are having these critical discussions with our partners, including the Environmental Protection Authority in Ghana, working towards regulations that would set the precedent downstream.

What is the quantity of textile waste in Ghana today?

There are narratives out there regarding items entering Ghana, some of which have been estimated to be waste. From our work so far, we have identified through our software that credible exporters working through our value chain system are sending goods to importers who receive minimal complaints and minimal unsellable items. The data suggests that 150.000 tonnes of second-hand clothing enter the country annually.

Ghana is cited as receiving these 150.000 tonnes of secondhand clothing, but what downstream accountability standards and end-of-life systems mean for those items, nobody can say. This is what has sat outside policy conversations. Every time policies come up, none of them focus on how downstream evidence must be central to that discussion and this is where the issue has always been.

Waste in secondhand clothing is determined by decisions about who handles the textile

Waste in secondhand clothing is determined by decisions about who handles the textile. You can have a very credible item that is not waste, but based on the decisions made about it, its fate is defined. Once we have identified the composition and extracted the relevant data, we can truly establish what constitutes waste. As we stand now, the figure of waste is highly debatable, because downstream systems and markets will do whatever they can to sell items they are unable to shift through upcyclers and other channels. Because these discussions have not entered foreign or European policy conversations, the missing pieces remain.

How are the discussions going with the Ghanaian government?

Government stakeholders in Ghana have been receptive to our work. The MOU with the Environmental Protection Authority, signed on 05/03/2026, is a critical part of the work, as it is a key actor in ensuring that the environmental dimension of textiles is protected. We are engaging the key relevant bodies that will help inform policy in the future. We are encouraged by the level of institutional support for this kind of work.

We cannot rely on EPR crossing borders

On the funding side, we are positioned so that our work becomes self-sustainable. Downstream markets can raise their own funding to build the infrastructure needed to tackle textiles at the end of life. We cannot rely on EPR crossing borders. EPR conversations in Europe have been ongoing for many years, while the cost of recovery is ongoing in these markets.

Our position is clear: downstream markets cannot wait for cross-border EPR to materialise before taking action. We must work with the conditions already present in these markets. Where textiles are placed on the market and later reach the end of their life, responsibility must be shared by all those who benefit from that value chain

Are you also planning to operate in other countries?

Ghana is our starting point. We have ambitions to scale across other downstream markets in various sub-regions of Africa, and we know that once the model works in Ghana, it will be replicable. Ghana is where we have witnessed the operational consequences of quality variations, reduced limits, sorting failures, and where end-of-life has become visible: it is a key part of our pilot work. Ghana will not carry the burden alone, but this pilot needs robust downstream evidence to function credibly. After this phase, we will move into other markets. We are already working with partners in Australia on sorting, and with partners in Italy who have adopted our systems and are recording data on textile flows.

Are European companies ready to build a market in downstream countries?

Europe is moving very fast on regulatory reform to achieve full operational readiness in the value chain. The EU Textile Strategy has been built around harmonised textile EPR. We can see the call for stronger eco-design rules, digital product passports, and controls on textile waste exports. The revised Waste Framework Directive was already intended for this direction. The circular economy continues to push the narrative towards traceability, sorting disciplines, and the recognition that an end-of-life solution is needed. There are institutions in Europe that are quite awake on the subject.

Large brands and organised industries can see that the old model has not worked.

Critically, large brands and organised industries can see that the old model has not worked. The main gap has been the lack of evidence and data to inform those decisions. If you are an investor wanting to build downstream infrastructure, you need to start from somewhere. It is not good enough to say that a certain quantity of items is waste. That does not give any serious partner the informed data or insights needed to solve the problem. Once we start collecting data and downstream regulations begin to tighten, the world at large will pay attention. That is why our work focuses downstream.