How to get recycling! Take your old clothes to H&M and Zara and get rewarded!

It’s time to start recycling! Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 5 years, I’m sure you are aware of the movement in the fashion industry, that’s shaking things up and finally making a change for good. Over the last last few years a phenomenal amount of high street stores have been named and shamed as being completely unethical.

High street brands have been exposed as trading unfairly, risking garment workers lives in dangerous working conditions, and in some cases child labour was still being endorsed. We’ve heard stories of workers being abused, beaten and some people were working to not even get paid. It’s not only been really disappointing to hear this about brands, that are portrayed and labelled as super glossy with morality, but also extremely sad and utterly shameful to know that at the end of the chain, someone is paying a terrible price.

The ugly truth about waste…

As consumerism increases, as does our throw away culture which basically results in disaster, known as Landfills.  Landfills are terrible for the environment, emitting all sorts of dangerous gases into the atmosphere that have been linked to Cancer and all sorts of other illness. Plus, we are quite simply running out of space to hold this much waste.

What’s the good news?

But the good news is this, all over the world clever minds have come together to shout about clothe wastage. We have campaigners raising awareness through petitions and making us change the way we shop, so we can all do what we can to protect the people who are making our clothes and the our planet by upcycling as much as possible.  The majority of high street stores still have a long way to go, but at least some stores like H&M and Zara are making small changes to get on board the sustainable fashion train.

So here is what H&M are doing to encourage recycling and protection of the planet and here is how you can get involved;

At H&M group, we believe it’s senseless that so much clothes and discarded textiles end up in landfills. Recycling is one of many ways fulfil our goals towards a sustainable future, and so far, we’ve collected more than 17,771 tonnes of textiles — the equivalent of 89 million T-shirts

You can now take your unwanted clothes into any H&M and ask for their garment collection boxes and get rewarded with a voucher. Just ask any member of staff to help! Find out more here.

Here is what happens one you’ve given your clothes in to the store…

AND THEN WHAT?

Your old clothes are in the garment-collecting box. Now, our business partner I:CO takes over. They collect the boxes, and then sort the contains into three categories:

·      Rewear — clothing that can be worn again will be sold as second-hand clothes.

·      Reuse — old clothes and textiles will be turned into other products, such as cleaning cloths.

·      Recycle — everything else is turned into textile fibres and used for things like insulation.

Zara are running a similar programme and on their website you can find your local store to drop clothes off.

Click on the image below to find out more.

Happy Recycling!