What Really Happens to Recycled Clothes
Image: Pier Francesco Grizi
Since becoming involved in our parish Live Simply campaign, I have read numerous articles on the depressing state of our fashion industry. There is abundant material (sorry!) for numerous blogs on the subject although, sadly, it is no laughing matter. The latest jaw dropping revelations for me came in an online article in The Times and The Sunday Times about trackers hidden in clothes intended for recycling Tracker Hidden In A Skirt Uncovers What Can Happen To Our Recycled Clothes (thetimes.co.uk).
The “Changing Markets Foundation” (a sustainability campaign group) hid electronic tags, sewn into the lining of good quality clothes dropped off in recycling bins in various high street shops throughout Europe. Shockingly, only 5 of the 21 items were sold on the same continent, with only 1 of those being sold in the same country. The rest travelled the world – some passing through 4 different time zones and across 3 continents. This is just bonkers - think of the wasted fuel and all those carbon emissions!
Skirt Travels 15,000 miles
The Foundation reported that a skirt and top dropped in H&M in Oxford Street travelled 15,000 miles to Mali, where two thirds of the population lives in poverty. The top was unsold after 3 months, whilst the skirt spent 2 months in wasteland on the outskirts of the capital, Bamako (where clothes are routinely burned, simply to reduce the volume – Mali imported 29,351 tonnes of used clothing in 2019, according to UN data).
Remember, these were good quality clothes – suitable for resale - that had apparently gone to waste. Other online articles have highlighted for me the environmental damage caused by dumped waste clothing and the risk to public health. It’s not even as if those at the end of this chain are truly benefiting – The Times article reports that Sory Sy sells shirts for about 46p each and said: “This isn’t a job to make money, it’s just enough to live and feed my family”.
It would be completely wrong to scapegoat a single retailer in this sorry tale; after all, even The Salvation Army’s website states that “Any clothing we are not able to sell in our shops is sold for reuse overseas.”. (For the record, H&M states that garments collected in the UK will now be sorted in Europe first - although quality items might still be sent on globally). It seems to me that, if a respected charity is having to send clothes abroad (and, presumably, it is not the only one), we need to examine our own role in this matter – as the purchasers who are providing this flood of clothes that is too much to be sold in local charity shops or recycled in this country.
UK Third Largest Exporter of Used Clothes
Firstly we need to recognise the sad fact that some of the world’s most deprived countries are being deluged with the West’s cast-off fast fashion, which they are ill equipped to recycle or dispose of safely. The Times article references the “Or Foundation” (a Ghanaian-based environmental campaign group) calling this “waste colonialism” and its co-founder pointing out how absurd it is to think that one of the poorest regions in the world is better placed to manage the textile waste that a G7 country struggles to manage.
Shockingly, according to UN data, the UK is the third-largest exporter of used clothes (after the USA and China – vastly bigger countries). In 2020, H&M alone collected 18,800 tonnes of unwanted clothes and textiles, through its garment collection programme. I mention H&M simply because the Times article provides the data for its 2020 collections. The fact is that H&M is just one of a number of clothing retailers (including Asda, John Lewis, M&S, Schuh, and River Island) which combine to offer drop-off points to recycle clothes at thousands of locations – a seemingly great idea.
However, according to Changing Markets Foundation, some retailers - by offering money off future purchases (in return for the donations) - incentivise “the very model of fast fashion that drives excessive consumption and waste”. Perhaps it is no surprise that UN data shows that British consumers buy more clothes than any other country in Europe, which other data suggests may only be worn once. Once! I am reminded of Pope Francis's words, in Laudato Si’, “The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own, and consume” - to which I would be tempted to add “and waste”.
This begs the question of what can we do in the face of this shocking knowledge that many of our cast off clothes are not being reused or recycled at all? The trite answer might be to hand our resalable clothes directly to a charity shop, in order to avoid the potential vagaries of in-store collection bins highlighted in the Times article. However, that would be to ignore that charity shops themselves are also sending clothes abroad.
Reduce First
As with so many other areas of Western living, I believe that the first thing to do would be to acknowledge that recycling alone cannot provide the answer to excessive consumption – it is the familiar mantra of “reduce”, before we can even think about “reuse” and “recycle”. Therefore, before buying any clothes, we would do well to reflect on whether we really need them (involving a thorough examination of both our conscience and our existing wardrobe). If we do decide to buy more clothes, we are blessed with many options to purchase quality items second hand. There are numerous physical shops (particularly high street charity shops), as well as online options (such as Oxfam, Thrift +, Re-Fashion, and Vinted), where great clothing can be obtained at bargain prices. If we are set on buying brand new clothes, remember that this article has not even looked at the environmental and personal damage caused by many of the manufacturing practices of the fashion industry. As a consequence of that behaviour, many would urge us to buy only clothes that will last, made of sustainable materials, and from suppliers with appropriate ethical credentials - provided that we are sure that we will wear each item again and again. This may cost us more in the short term, but then those clothes will hopefully be loved, treasured, and worn for years.
In conclusion, we would be right to be shocked to learn what really happens to much of the clothing that we innocently give to be resold or recycled, and by the ongoing humanitarian and environmental disaster our donations feed in poorer countries. I believe, however, that we should not rest there, but should also ask ourselves the more fundamental question of why we have so many clothes that we are passing on in the first place? Addressing this point could (and probably should) involve a fundamental, and potentially painful, re-evaluation of our whole attitude to purchasing.