For the past 14 years, Liz Ricketts has worked to bring global awareness to fashion’s waste crisis as Co-founder and Executive Director of The Or Foundation, a Ghana-based non-profit working at the intersection of environmental justice, education, and fashion development.
A designer and educator by training, Ms. Ricketts’ work has played a critical role in advocating for meaningful international policy change and brand accountability. She has also been at the forefront of identifying and implementing innovative solutions to address textile waste and its impact on local communities in Accra, Ghana — home to Kantamanto Market, the world’s largest secondhand clothing market and leading hub for reuse, repair, upcycling, and remanufacturing. In collaboration with community members, Ms. Ricketts and her team recently launched the Stop Waste Colonialism campaign calling for extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies to be globally accountable and urging brands and policy makers to move critical resources to communities like Kantamanto. On January 1, 2025, a fire destroyed 60% of Kantamanto, leaving a community that is vital to the circular economy without adequate resources to rebuild, further revealing the fragility of the global secondhand trade, underscoring the true cost of overproduction, and highlighting the urgency with which EPR policies must be rethought.
Ms. Ricketts studied fashion design at the University of Cincinnati and holds a master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was an Urban Scholars Fellow.
