Opinion: Textile waste is becoming an extension of the plastic crisis

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As Africa’s fashion and second-hand clothing economy continues to expand, circular economy advocate Eric Guantai warns that textile waste is increasingly becoming an extension of the global plastic crisis. He argues that much of today’s discarded clothing is made from synthetic, fossil fuel-based materials contributing to a growing range of environmental and urban waste management challenges across the continent. 

• Mr Guantai is a circular economy practitioner and sustainability consultant with extensive experience in climate change, waste management, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), ESG integration and Scope 3 emissions.

• “What many consumers do not realise is that modern textile waste is no longer simply fabric waste. A significant portion of today’s textiles are plastic by another name,” he says.

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By Eric Guantai

The global conversation around fashion and textiles has long been associated with creativity, identity, culture, employment, and economic growth. Yet beneath the glamour of apparel retail, fast fashion trends, second-hand clothing markets, and expanding textile consumption lies a growing environmental crisis that remains insufficiently discussed across many developing economies, including in Africa: textile waste.

Across Nairobi and many urban centres in Africa, landfills, dumpsites, drainage systems, roadsides, and informal dumping corridors are increasingly overwhelmed by discarded clothes, torn garments, footwear, upholstery materials, carpets, synthetic fabrics, textile offcuts, and allied consumables generated from households, mitumba markets, tailoring shops, hotels, hospitals, schools, factories, and retail systems.

What many consumers do not realize is that modern textile waste is no longer simply fabric waste. A significant portion of today’s textiles are plastic by another name.

Synthetic fibres such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, spandex, polyurethane, and other petroleum-based materials now dominate global textile production. Polyester alone accounts for more than half of all textiles produced globally. These materials are derived largely from fossil fuels and behave environmentally much like plastics. When disposed of, they persist in the environment for decades, fragment into microplastics, contaminate water systems, and contribute to landfill expansion and pollution. In many ways, textile waste has quietly become one of the fastest-growing extensions of the global plastic crisis.

Africa’s growing fashion economy—including both new apparel and second-hand clothing systems commonly referred to as “mitumba”—has accelerated textile circulation across all income levels. However, while discussions often focus on affordability, jobs, and trade, very little attention is given to what happens after garments reach end-of-life.

Large volumes of low-quality synthetic garments eventually become waste within very short usage cycles. Some clothes are imported already nearing the end of their usable life. Others rapidly degrade due to poor fibre quality associated with fast-fashion production systems designed around high turnover and low durability.

The result is visible across dumpsites such as Dandora in Nairobi and many unofficial disposal sites across the country and across Africa. Mountains of mixed textile waste now form part of the expanding landfill crisis. Synthetic garments absorb rainwater, trap methane gases within dumpsites, complicate decomposition processes, block drainage systems, and contribute to flooding in urban settlements. Open burning of textile waste releases toxic emissions and microplastic particles into the environment.