Search Results - Greenpeace International

The Wienfluss river overflows its banks in Vienna, Austria, on September 15, 2024. A fireman in northeastern Austria has died in flooding as the country was hit by torrential rains that have lashed central and eastern Europe, authorities said.

Greenpeace is horrified by damages brought by floods across Central and Eastern Europe, claiming lives, leaving homes without power and farmers with ruined fields, after being already ravaged by drought.

16/09/2024

The fashion industry has a massive plastic problem that it outsources to countries in the Global South, where textile waste pollutes the environment. Ghana is one of the world's largest consumers of second-hand textiles. A good 120,000 tonnes of second-hand clothing from Asia, North America and Europe end up in the West African country every year. More than half of the clothing is inferior disposable goods with no resale value - much of it is made of plastic.

On a research trip to Accra, a team from Greenpeace Africa and Greenpeace Germany used infrared scanners to examine discarded clothing at landfill sites and identify the various fibres. The result: almost nine out of ten items of clothing (89 per cent) contain synthetic fibres made from fossil fuels. After the garments are thrown away, these synthetic fibres decompose into microplastics. In the tested clothing from the Kantamanto market - the largest second-hand textile market in West Africa - the figure is as high as 96 per cent.

Greenpeace also analysed the air quality in three wash houses in Accra where textile waste is incinerated. The results show that the air is heavily polluted with hazardous chemicals, many of which are single or multiple carcinogens, mutagens and toxic to reproduction.

As part of a return-to-sender campaign, Greenpeace shipped textile waste back to Germany in a container designed by Ghanaian artists in order to take further samples and raise awareness about the destructive side of fast fashion.

Overconsumption in the textile industry and the massive use of synthetic plastic fibres and blended fabrics are causing devastating environmental damage and threatening nature and people in the Global South.

In the picture: Greenpeace banner at Jamestown, a fishery town in Accra where textile waste is washed into the sea

Stories

#Consumption

4 African activists taking on fast fashion

The Global North’s fashion addiction is fueling environmental disasters across Africa. Here are four activists from the continent pushing back on fast fashion.

12/09/2024

Activists demonstrate in central Kyiv calling for city authorities to improve water treatment.

Stories

#About Us #Chornobyl #Nuclear #Peace

Greenpeace Ukraine: demonstration of bravery

Greenpeace Ukraine Director Natalia Gozak reflects on the history of Greenpeace and Ukraine as the new office opens in Kyiv.

10/09/2024

#Forests

Hope for nature

Demand that global leaders defund nature’s destruction and fund its protection, restoration and renewal.

09/09/2024

Send your message

Twenty-four hours before the end of the negotiations for a Plastics Treaty at the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), Greenpeace Canada activists hung a banner on the Mackenzie King Bridge, right next to the Shaw Center, where world delegations are gathered. The fourteen meters banner read “People over polluters: Cut plastic production now!” and followed the release of an analysis revealing a rise in industry lobby presence at the negotiations.

Press Releases

#Plastics #Climate

Bette Midler, Lupita Nyong’o join other actors, activists and athletes asking world leaders to cut plastic production

Ahead of the United Nations General Assembly opening in New York, Tony and Grammy winner Bette Midler and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o joined forces with other actors, athletes and activists…

09/09/2024

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