In the cavernous networking halls of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference 2026, the air hums with the language of finance, innovation, and net-zero targets. Delegates shuffle between panels on carbon credits and regenerative agriculture, clutching espresso cups and jargon-filled briefs. But in the corner, amid the chatter, a different conversation is unfolding.
This one challenges the very premise of how the global sustainability movement operates. Eric Agyare, Research and Partnership Lead at The Revival Earth, has just returned from a workshop where he contributed to a proposed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme. The scheme, designed by European entities to tax textile producers and fund waste management, is exactly the kind of “big English” policy solution that usually gets drafted in boardrooms thousands of miles away from the people it affects.
And Agyare is here to make one thing clear: that era is over. “If we sit for the global north to put together a scheme, a solution, and they want to apply it to us, it becomes a lot more difficult,” he told culture journalist and climate activist Kenneth Awotwe Darko on the sidelines of the conference. “We are here to be able to add our voice to it so that we wouldn’t be an afterthought.” At the heart of Agyare’s message is Kantamanto, the sprawling second-hand clothing market in Accra, Ghana.
It is one of the world’s largest repositories for the Global North’s discarded fashion, a receiving end of a broken system where the average European or American consumer sends their unwanted garments to “recycling.” But in Kantamanto, recycling isn’t a buzzword. Over 30,000 traders and workers have, for decades, kept millions of tons of textiles in circularity. They sort, repair, upcycle, and resell what the West no longer wants.
When garments are unsellable, they are converted into industrial rags, stuffing, or other valuable goods. It is an informal economy, but a remarkably efficient one. It’s a living, breathing example of the circular economy that Western nations are now scrambling to legislate.
“There’s over 30,000 workers that have been keeping these clothes in circularity,” Mr Agyare emphasized. “They’ve got a lot of challenges, so it would be good for them to involve us a lot more so that we know that it’s a collective approach.” Yet, the workers of Kantamanto are struggling.
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