What is the Garment Collecting H&M campaign
This is a very simple thing: old clothing and textiles are delivered that are no longer used at the store and H&M will reuse them, giving it new life. The aim is sustainable to close the fashion circle, avoiding that tons of clothes end up in landfills.
The Garment Collecting H&M initiative, started in 2013, continues this year as well.
How clothes collection works
The bag with discarded and unused items of any brand, model, type is brought to any H&M store. The garments will be stored and taken to special collection points by H&M personnel ; from there, the partner of the company I: CO collects them and transfers them to the nearest sorting and sorting plant. There are over 350 different categories in which the garments collected are divided.
What happens to old clothes?
Those still in good condition and reusable will still be put back on the world market and sold as second-hand clothes. The fabrics will be reused as textile fibers or used to make new products, following the upcycling philosophy.
Items that are no longer in good condition, broken, damaged or indelibly soiled, will find new life such as rags or cleaning tools. Or they can still be ground and end up as padding in cars, or become part of the insulation panels used in construction.
Fashion "Conscious" H&M
It is a "conscious" and sustainable line of garments, which proposes garments made of 20% or 30% recycled fibers and skeins thanks to Garment Collecting. The goal of the manufacturer is to carry on and continue to invest in research and innovation to increasingly increase Conscious fashion products.
Even metals, buttons, hinges will be used. The powder is even recycled : collected and pressed into cubes, it will be sent to the paper industry as a co-product to make cartons. The last of the garments collected will be sent to incinerators and transformed into energy.
As specified on the site, H&M does not make any profit from the Garment collecting. Revenues from these items are donated to charitable organizations or reinvested in the study of innovative recycling solutions.
Credit photo Nicklas Heine
