There’s a beach in England where there’s a lot of LEGO bricks stemming from some dropped container. Last year a ferry sprunf leak and huge amount of engine diesel floated ashore not far from where I live.
My beefr was that 6 ft of textiles covering beaches is a far cry from some textiles washing a shore on a beach (as per the article).
The rich countries shipping their waste to poor countries is obviously a problem. Come Jan 1st, the EU has banned clothing firms from dumping unsold clothes. Computers and other electronics end up in African landfills where locals burn off the plastic to get the thin wiring to sell for scrap.
But as opposed to what the OP was about, i.e. a perceived affinity for car tires in Ghana, this is “just” pollution. Ans the shoreline is not engulfed in it. The big problem Ghana faces is coastal erosion, with the beaches shrinking every year.
I know! I was so hoping for an answer. Matilda’s saying that it just blocks the doorway was so disappointing. I also couldn’t help but wonder why the goats don’t simply slip through the hole in the middle of the tire.
Why? Lots of waste is exported from Western countries because it is expensive to dispose of locally. Tires are bulky, extremely tough, spread disease (they collect water that breeds mosquitoes) and we produce more than the recycling industry can handle. Used tire disposal is tightly regulated and tire fitting companies have to pay to have used tires taken away.
It’s cheaper to cram a few thousand tires into a shipping container and send them off to somewhere to be “recycled” (wink, wink).
Why not both? Some beaches in Ghana are clean and beautiful,
others are full of textile waste.
Same happens in Europe too: the clean beautiful beaches have to be kept clean, otherwise they become polluted too in a matter of days. Not with textiles, usually. But with plastic residues, tar, bottles, tires…
