H&M Becomes First Fashion Retailer to Launch Global Apparel Collection; collection containers for used textiles can now also be found in the branches of other H&M Group brands such as Monki, Weekday, Cos, Arket and & Other Stories. The company pledged at the time that 95 percent of the thousands of tons of textiles thrown away each year could be reused or recycled.
In the “Close the Loop” graphic used at the time (see below), consumers were even fooled into believing that their discarded old textiles would become fabrics again through “innovation” and then become new products that could be used, for example, for the “Conscious” collection would be used.
Ten years later, consumers (industry insiders even back then) know that it’s not that simple: textiles are (still) difficult to recycle into new textiles, since they are made of mixed fabrics from different raw materials, most commonly cotton and polyester . This still poses a challenge for the industry today and, specifically, only one percent of all old clothes are currently made into new clothing.
H&M and other fashion groups can’t do much about that per se; Technology just takes its time and it needs to be commercially scalable. So what happens to these huge mountains of used textiles, which H&M was already calling “thousands of tons” at the time? Some are incinerated, some end up in landfills, and others travel thousands of miles to the second-hand markets of the Global South. However, since less and less of the items of clothing shipped in this way are suitable for resale due to poor quality, they end up back in the landfill, just not on your own doorstep, but nice and far away – out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.
The Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet and the German newspaper Bild recently independently investigated where “recycled” H&M clothing ends up and came to the same conclusion: instead of tackling the problem locally with recycling partners, old clothes are being sent halfway around the world. And you can blame fashion companies like H&M and others (who do the same) for that, because they now know very well how difficult it is to recycle old clothes in a meaningful way.
H&M responds to allegations
H&M responds to the allegations with carefully worded entrepreneurial phrases that are currently being sent to the media on request (however, no one may be quoted by name): The H&M Group is “categorically opposed to the fact that clothes become waste”, they “take the findings very seriously” and customers can rest assured that “the items of clothing that they hand in to our clothing collection boxes are handled responsibly”.
In addition, “efforts to build a circular supply chain will be stepped up” and continued with a new partner, the German recycling company Remondis, instead of with I:CO as before. “We changed partners for our clothing collection initiative at the beginning of the year and have not worked with I:CO since then. Unfortunately this has not been correctly updated on our Swedish website Schysstmode.hm.com. This error has now been corrected,” said the textile industry from the German H&M headquarters in Hamburg.
Out of sight, out of mind
The company does not address the fact that the garments turned up thousands of kilometers from the collection points, but describes this as a success: “As the locations of the tracked garments with an active signal showed in the post itself, all the garments ended up at second-hand or recycling companies . In addition, Remondis’ own investigation has confirmed that the garments have reached well-known and appropriate partners,” H&M replied to FashionUnited’s request.
Well, you can rest easy, especially when H&M emphasizes that they are “long-term and certified partners of Remondis”, a partner with whom the company has only been doing business since the beginning of the year.
Distribute textile waste strategically
H&M’s next statement is even more questionable: “We require our partners to have procedures in place to ensure that the garments and textiles collected are responsibly categorized – either for further use as a product or in second hand or in mould of recycling to ensure nothing ends up as waste.”
So the problem is passed on to third parties: the carefully “categorized” textile waste ends up either with the recycling company, on the second-hand market or is resold – where or how far doesn’t seem to matter, and what they ultimately do with it, neither.
To appease those who might be concerned about the final resting place of old clothing, H&M adds a twist: “We know that sorting and recycling clothing and textiles remains a challenge, regardless of the brand or charity. But we also see that more and more scalable solutions for textile recycling are being developed, which is very positive. The H&M Group is actively working on this topic and at the same time investing in scalable solutions in textile recycling.”
In the usual H&M manner, the statement is nice and vague and it refers to a further webpage on the subject of recycling, which in turn points to the collection containers in the stores as a measure, as well as recycled materials such as Infinna and Circulose, which sound good, but serve only a fraction of the new products. The much-lauded ‘Green Machine’ for separating textile blends in collaboration with HKRITA, while a laudable approach, is not yet working on an industrial scale and may never work on the scale that H&M would need given its huge annual production volume. And so the circle really closes – the circle of promises and greenwashing.
Less would be more
Speaking of huge volume: A simple solution would be to start at the source and stem the flow of clothing, to produce less. But that cannot be reconciled with the fast fashion business models of H&M and Co., which are based on overconsumption and overproduction.
Consumers now know this too, but are reassured with initiatives such as “Close the loop”, “Conscious” collections, in-store recycling and recycling weeks. This is clever, because they can continue to buy fast fashion with a clear conscience, which supposedly “closes the loop”. Nobody seems to care that the apparently circular initiatives have one thing in common, namely to further boost consumption through credits that only apply to new products. And so the ruble rolls on and the textile mountains get higher.
Does fast fashion only serve consumer needs?
A favorite argument of fast fashion suppliers like H&M, Zara, Forever 21 and others and ultra fast fashion suppliers like Shein is that they are merely responding to a need from consumers who are always asking for new merchandise that to renew itself faster and faster. Of course they do, they are not called “consumers” for nothing. Trade and thus “Retail Therapy” is almost as old as mankind itself – we love shiny, beautiful and above all new things.
But what the companies miss is that “new” is a flexible term and actually only means, for a:n specific:n consumer:in new; it can therefore definitely be second-hand, altered or even exchanged goods; such as a sewn or upcycled piece of clothing.
Fashion retailers could always offer something “new”, but it doesn’t have to be made from new materials – it can be slightly or hardly used that changes hands, or it can be modified, newly combined or created from leftover stocks. The possibilities are actually endless. Does this require creativity, going new ways, maybe a little lonely or even frightening at first, and rethinking in the interests of the community in favor of individuals? In any case. But if you can put so much energy into thinking up new excuses and cumbersome disposal methods, you can certainly cope with such a small challenge.