NAIROBI — Mountains of waste stretch as far as the eye can see, smoking in places, giving off an acrid stench that stings the eyes and catches in the throat. These are the first sensations that overwhelm you upon arrival at the Dandora dump in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, one of the largest open-air landfills in Africa. Starting early each morning, men, women and marabou storks — huge, vulture-like birds —scavenge the site to find enough to sustain them through another day. Plastic bottles to resell, a bone to gnaw on … But there’s something else here: A close look reveals countless scraps of fabric from discarded apparel. Most of these clothes didn’t originate in Kenya. An investigation by the Changing Markets Foundation reveals that more than 900 million items of used clothing were exported to Kenya from Europe, the U.K., the U.S., Canada and China in 2021 alone. Of these items, more than half were considered waste, unsellable, and more than a third likely contained plastic-based fibers that don’t biodegrade. Instead, they break down into ever smaller microfibers that can contaminate food or be breathed into the lungs. Gikomba market, Nairob. Image by Elodie Toto. “Plastic is so cheap to make that we can now find plastic making the majority of our clothes,” says Imogen Napper, a marine scientist at the University of Plymouth, U.K. “And it was only invented 100 years ago. We know it under the name of polyester, acrylic, nylon …” Napper initiated the first study…This article was originally published on Mongabay