Posted by Lorenzo van Sichem
on January 26, 2023
Mountains have captivated the imagination since time immemorial. The enormous stacks of frayed Zara shirts, the meaning of the plumes of smoke rising from Primark socks, or the unprecedented climb to the top of a tank top. We've compiled a list of the most iconic and impressive textile mountains for you.
1. Atacama Desert (Chile)
In Chile's Atacama Desert, a diverse route winds through 30,000 tons of third-rate, discarded clothing. This colossus was created in no time, thanks to the help of overflowing ships from Europe and America. It travels through local markets and ends up on the mountain, offering you a view of the vast sandy plains.
Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-60249712
2. Korle Lagoon (Ghana)
Around 15 million used garments end up in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, every week. Most of them come from the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and Australia. The imported clothing is highly sought after at local markets. Unfortunately, about 40% of all textiles are of such poor quality that they quickly end up in the cattle-populated textile mountain.
3. Nairobi (Kenya)
In 2019 alone, Kenya imported 185,000 tons of old textiles. Some 30 to 40% of these garments had no market value whatsoever—let alone quality. Market traders complain bitterly, and rightly so, that they can't do anything with the imported clothing. A massive mountain of textiles quickly builds up.
Our mission
Worldwide, mountains of textiles are growing. In the Netherlands alone, this amounts to approximately 330 million kilos of old textiles annually . We want to reduce this mountain, bit by bit.
We do this by transforming old textiles—such as workwear —into recycled felt . This prevents low-quality textiles from ending up on large ships bound for Africa or South America.
Will you help?
Read more about who we are and what we stand for here:
https://i-did.nl/pages/over-ons
