Research spotlight – Dr Allison Lindner: Addressing global fashion waste and environmental equity

Dr Allison Lindner is a legal scholar at the UCL Faculty of Laws and a member of the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment. In March 2025, Allison was awarded UCL’s Global Engagement Seed Fund to support her co-produced research with partners in Ghana on fashion waste and environmental justice.

Allison joined the Faculty in 2021 as a Lecturer, bringing an interdisciplinary research focus that bridges environmental law, sustainable development, waste and the informal economy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Her work explores how international legal frameworks shape the economic lives of the informal economy, with a longstanding interest in the textiles, extractive, and waste management industries.

In this brief interview, Allison shares more about her new project in collaboration with the OR Foundation in Ghana. Supported by the Global Engagement Fund, the project investigates how UK regulation that governs extended producer responsibility (EPR) is informed by the activities of second-hand clothing markets in Ghana. She also reflects on the broader implications of her work for environmental law, informal labour, and global justice.

1. Can you briefly tell us what your project is about and what inspired it?

I’ll be exploring solutions to the growing problem of fashion waste in Ghana. An estimated 15 million pieces of fashion waste arrive in the country from overseas each week, with the UK being one of the largest exporters.

My research project will look at how UK extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation is informed by the activities of informal economic actors in second-hand clothing markets in Ghana. This project builds on my broader work on sustainable development and the informal economy, including my recent publications and feature-length documentary film on sustainable development and waste pickers in South Africa.

2. Why did you choose Ghana as the focus for your research on fashion waste? Who are your collaborators there, and how are you planning to work together?

I chose Ghana because it receives a very large volume of fashion waste from Western countries every week. This has placed significant pressure on its waste management systems.

I’ll be collaborating with the OR Foundation, an NGO focused on fashion development and environmental justice. We will speak with key stakeholders with the aim of producing useful insights that can inform appropriate regulatory responses to the problem of fashion waste by developing a policy brief on UK EPR regulation.

3. What global or local challenges does your project address? And what kind of impact are you hoping it might have?

My project addresses the ongoing global waste problem. In the West, we are largely addicted to fast fashion. We donate clothing to charities, hoping they will be used for good, but unfortunately, the pieces that are not of good enough quality to be sold in the UK and elsewhere are shipped to countries in the Global South like Ghana.

Informal second-hand sellers will buy the clothing in the hope of reselling them, but due to the poor quality of much of the clothing now produced, less and less of it is actually sellable. As a result, a growing proportion ends up as waste in countries like Ghana that lack the infrastructure to manage this influx, which creates huge environmental and social problems.

There is a growing upcycling market, but it is nowhere near the industrial scale needed to be a sustainable solution.

My project aims to contribute to the work being done to create needed solutions that will be effective in the long term.

4. How does your international work connect with your wider research interests at UCL Laws and the Centre for Law and the Environment?

My research is focused on the informal waste economy from an environmental law perspective in sub-Saharan Africa, and this aligns well with the Centre for Law and the Environment’s focus on research across a broad range of areas within environmental law.

5. How has the Global Engagement Fund helped support this work? And what would you say to colleagues or early career researchers at UCL Laws who might benefit from this kind of funding?

The Global Engagement Fund has supported my work through a successful grant application made in June 2024. This kind of funding provides support for international collaborations that may otherwise be difficult to undertake. I would encourage colleagues and other early career researchers to explore how the Global Engagement Fund can enhance your work.

6. What’s next for the project?

I'll be working with the OR Foundation on policy. My short research stay will help to evaluate whether to apply for external funding for a longer-term academic project.

Spotlight on Waste: Film and Policy Brief

Allison Lindner’s documentary, Reclaiming Now (co-directed with Premilla Murcott and Tricia Hlongwa), gives voice to waste pickers in South Africa and explores how sustainable development and environmental policy shapes local lived experiences. Based on her doctoral research, the film and its accompanying policy brief, have contributed to broader conversations around sustainability and the future of waste governance. In 2023, the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment hosted a screening and discussion of the film.

Find out more

• Watch Reclaiming now and the full screening discussion on YouTube
• Allison Lindner's UCL profiles page
• Recipients of Global Engagement Fund 25/26
• Policy brief: How to make waste management policymaking better
• Journal article: An Example of Sustainable Development (In)Action: The Case of Waste Pickers at a Buy-Back Centre in Johannesburg