Why does H&M recycle used clothes in stores around the world?

In the streets and alleys of Shanghai’s fashionable business district, vendors who recycle used clothing are everywhere. Their existence is actually the result of consumers inadvertently, because every year those who are recycled by them The old clothes that were cleared out were not actually sent to professional recycling organizations.

When it comes to clothing recycling, most people only care about how to facilitate recycling. As for who will recycle it and where the clothes will eventually go, few people care about follow-up issues. The used clothes that fall into the hands of hawkers will be relabeled as new clothes if they are in good quality and then sold, while those of poor quality will be sold to brick kilns and boiler factories to be burned as fuel.

China's annual textile output reaches more than 40 million tons, and consumers discard more than 20 million tons of used clothes every year. However, less than 10% of them can be sent to professional recycling organizations. Most of the waste in our country Clothes were not handled effectively. Ensuring that consumers’ used clothes can be sent to professional recycling organizations is the key to ending problems such as disorderly recycling of used clothes and secondary pollution. To untie the bell, one must tie the bell. Between consumers, the government and professional recycling agencies, the international clothing company H&M believes that clothing companies should also become an important part of the old clothes recycling process. Taking measures starting from the moment consumers purchase may be able to solve the various problems in the old clothes recycling process. The problem of falling off the chain.

Nowadays, when you walk into any H&M store, you can find a white and green box over 1 meter high placed next to the cashier, with the slogan "Enduring Fashion" printed on it. slogan. Relying on these boxes, H&M hopes to make all "fashion garbage" truly realize the concept of "where it comes from, where it goes back".

At the beginning of this year, H&M launched the "Global Used Clothes Recycling Program" in 49 markets around the world. After testing two stores in Shanghai, 174 domestic stores also launched this recycling program in August. In fact, before H&M, fast fashion brand Uniqlo and lifestyle brand Puma also tried to recycle used clothes from consumers. However, H&M has greater ambitions than the latter two. It not only spreads the net of used clothes recycling around the world, And no matter who comes, no matter the brand, type of clothing or condition, we accept all orders.

"When a customer donates used clothes, the other party can receive a 15% off shopping coupon for use in the next shopping trip." The person in charge of the H&M used clothes recycling program Fu Xiarong told the reporter of "21st Century Business Review" that each store will regularly collect recycled clothes to designated recycling points, and then uniformly transport them to I: Collect (hereinafter referred to as "I:Co"), an internationally renowned textile recycling organization. The Swiss headquarters performs professional sorting processing.

I:Co is the world's largest and oldest textile recycling company. As an important partner of H&M's "Global Used Clothes Recycling Program", it is mainly responsible for the logistics, sorting, analysis, and recycling of used clothes. Utilize and other work. The reason for choosing I:Co, H&M said, is because of the professional capabilities of I:Co and its parent company Soex Group. They have the world's most advanced textile recycling plant and exemplary process control system, and can effectively process 400 textiles per day. tons of discarded textiles.

In addition to high processing efficiency, I:Co’s used clothing evaluation standards are also intensively developed. Based on more than 400 standards, they classify the clothing processing results into four categories: rewear, reuse, recycling and energy production. Big type. The items suitable for re-wearing are disinfected and resold as second-hand clothing, while the parts suitable for reuse are made into rags and other items, making the best possible use of them.

In terms of cost-benefit settlement, after comprehensively evaluating the value of recycled clothing, I:Co will pay H&M the corresponding fees, and H&M will donate part of the proceeds to the "H&M Environmental Consciousness Action Fund". To continue to support other textile environmental protection innovation projects, H&M will donate 0.02 euros for every kilogram of old clothing recycled.

On the hm.charitystar.com website, H&M also announced in real time the number of used clothes they recycled in various countries and the amount of money donated to charities. As of early November this year, H&M's "Global Used Clothes Recycling Program" had recycled a total of 2,937.887 tons of used clothes and donated 486,400 yuan to charity. Among them, Chinese stores recycled 42.6 tons of clothes and donated about 7,053 yuan to the United Nations Children's Fund. .

In terms of reshaping the global clothing circular economy, H&M's "Global Used Clothes Recycling Plan" is considered a positive demonstration sample. H&M is responsible for the recycling of used clothes in the upper reaches of the industry chain, and I:Co is responsible for the industry. Processing and distribution downstream of the chain. This powerful combination can not only shorten the distance between the source of used clothes and used clothes processors, but also ensure the standardization and efficiency of used clothes recycling. It can reduce pollution and waste while giving back. Society can be said to achieve multiple things with one stone. I believe that H&M is just the beginning of this win-win plan.

Written by Huang Yanyi This article was originally published in Issue 135 of "21st Century Business Review"