H&M promotes clothes recycling

Together with DoSomething.org and Olivia Wilde of Conscious Commerce, Swedish fashion retailer H&M started Comeback Clothes, a campaign that encourages young people to reduce clothing waste by recycling their old clothes. The campaign does not only include H&M garments but those of any brand and in

any condition.

Though most fabrics can be recycled, 85 percent of all textiles end up in landfills each year – that’s 11.1 million tons of fabric or the equivalent of over 70 billion T-shirts according to the campaign. To change this situation, Comeback Clothes targets young people to give their old and worn-out clothes a new life through recycling: from 17th April through 20th June, these will be collected in schools and communities and dropped off in garment recycling bins at any H&M store. The company will then send them to a recycling facility where they can be recycled.

Recycling versus landfills

"We are proud of the achievements made since we launched our garment recycling initiative last year at H&M. We are also aware of the challenges ahead, which is why we have partnered with DoSomething.org. We want to positively affect the environment by offering our customers a convenient way to recycle," said Daniel Kulle, president of H&M USA.

To increase the incentive, participants will receive a 15 percent discount on their next purchase and those who send a photo of themselves making a clothing donation will be automatically entered to win a 10,000 US dollar scholarship. By the time the next worn-out or unloved piece of clothing pops up, participants would have made clothes recycling a habit and would think twice before simply throwing their old T-shirt in the trash.

"Everyone has a T-shirt with a coffee stain that sits in the back of her closet. Comeback Clothes is awesome because it's an easy way for young people to help the planet and repurpose all of those single socks," said DoSomething.org CEO Nancy Lublin. The organization is one of the largest for young people that promotes social change.

Only a week earlier, H&M’s Conscious Exclusive collection hit stores. All garments in the collection are made out of ethically sourced, sustainable fabrics such as organic silk and cotton and vegetable tanned leather and recycled polyester. Though some say that promoting fast fashion and its “wear and throw” attitude on the one hand and ethical fashion on the other is not without controversy, H&M has a strong desire to position itself as a leader in sustainable fashion. After all, the concept of fast fashion would be less problematic if the clothes were made out of recycled materials and if more clothing giants would join in.

“The textiles are expensive but the more fashion brands buy them, the cheaper they’ll become. That’s why we’re pushing brands from the luxury end right through to the high street to invest. It needs a group effort for things to change,” explained Alexia Niedzielski, co-founder of sustainable fashion think tank Ever Manifesto that partnered with H&M for Conscious Exclusive.

To celebrate the Comeback Clothes campaign, its partners and Earth Day, H&M will have a pop-up sustainability booth in Union Square Park in New York tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22 where visitors can recycle their old and unwanted clothes.