Climate Science and Policy

The waste culture of the Global North has accelerated the flow of discarded goods to developing countries with limited waste-management infrastructure. Fast fashion has produced a take-make-dispose model in which secondhand clothing is donated, exported, and ultimately accumulated under ambient sunlight at open dumpsites in receiving countries. Royer et al. (2018) demonstrated that plastic polymers from water bottles and plastic bags release methane under ultraviolet (UV) weathering. This study tests whether polyester exhibits similar properties of UV-driven greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This was done by measuring GHGs (CH₄, CO₂, and CO) from textiles under controlled experimental UV exposures in a laboratory at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and in situ from textile waste sitting under the sun in Ghana. As for the laboratory experiment we included different variables to our analysis in order to mimic possible conditions in the field, namely with the type of polymer (polyester, cotton), the color of the textile (yellow, black), the pre-aging of the textiles (experimentally UV weathered for 1, 2, or 3 weeks), and the exposure condition (dry, wet either with water or H₂O₂). Polyester produced significant amounts of all three gases across most conditions tested, with consistently larger fluxes than cotton, establishing synthetic textiles as a measurable greenhouse gas source under environmentally realistic UV exposure. Field measurements at nine sites in Accra, Ghana, including the open-air textile waste dump of Old Fadama detected GHGs substantially above atmospheric background, with CH₄ being up to 28 times greater in some areas. These preliminary findings establish disposal-phase emissions from accumulated textile waste as a possible greenhouse gas emissions pathway that is unaccounted for in climate predictions. Textile waste is an issue that has been aggravated by the fast fashion industry and managing the waste would help address its contribution to GHGs emission. Policies under the Extended Producer Responsibility frameworks have been put in place for this purpose but have shown some serious limitations, notably by excluding countries receiving the textile waste. This study will help close this regulatory gap by demonstrating that the end-of-life of the textile product is key to assessing its carbon footprint, thus pushing for lifecycle assessment traceability through secondhand export.