This is one of the brands’ solutions to make fashion greener and more responsible. For several years now, all H&M, Zara and Mango stores have been equipped with bins where you can place the clothes you no longer wear so that they can be recycled, whatever their brand or condition. But behind these promises, what really happens to the clothes we throw away?
More than 6 months ago, we sorted out our wardrobe. And put aside three jackets, which we no longer wanted. We equip them with geolocation beacons to follow them wherever they travel.
Once these few stitches are finished, we go to 3 major brand stores. Above the dumpsters, no doubt. Recycling promises are displayed black on white :
“Leave the clothes you no longer wear here and we will recycle their fabrics.”
Very quickly, a windbreaker left at H&M headed for the Netherlands, transported by road. He will be confined in a hangar at the port of Rotterdam, with a wholesaler who buys and resells second-hand clothing. We get in touch with him. He confirms that he only does sorting, not recycling. This company sells its merchandise by weight, from 1 euro 85 per kilo, to 4 euros 85 for lots in better condition.
What about our kway? For weeks, we thought it was lost or our GPS beacon was broken. But at the beginning of February, three months after we parted ways with him, he reappeared on our screens. After more than 20,000 kilometers traveled, in one of the poorest countries in the world, in Karachi, Pakistan.
Our windbreaker heads into a market, where three thousand stalls sell clothes that Europe no longer wants. We go to this neighborhood where thousands of clothes are piled up in hangars, sometimes up to the ceiling. They are sorted by hand by overworked Pakistani workers. Our jacket is there, somewhere in the middle of these piles.
“Look at all this stock!” The manager of the store where our jacket is located calls out to us: “We receive clothes from Italy, we also receive some from France. The clothes that come from France are cleaner, but we also receive damaged ones and here, no one wants them. In Karachi, we don’t have a harsh and long winter, so there is no demand.”
A jacket like ours will at best be resold for 250 rupees, or 80 euro cents. But as these workers confirm, it will never be recycled. If she doesn’t find a buyer in Pakistan, she will probably continue her journey to Thailand.
Contacted, H&M to whom we had entrusted our jacket reaffirms that 30% items collected in its stores are recycled. As for the case of our windbreaker, here is the response from the Swedish giant:
“Second-hand sorted clothing is sold around the world, in countries where there is demand and where these clothes can provide a popular and affordable alternative to new clothing.”
Our kway is not the only one of our clothes to have been sent to the other side of the world. A jacket left at Zara now comes from North India. Here’s how the brand explains it:
“Clothes in good condition (67% of the total collected last year) are donated or resold. The remaining products, those that cannot be reused, are transformed into textile fibers or materials for industrial use.”
A third item of clothing, entrusted to Mango this time, is in the United Arab Emirates,after passing through Valencia, Spain, where the brand’s subcontractor agreed to receive us. This NGO is responsible for managing the clothes collected in French Mango stores. It sorts 20,000 tonnes of clothing each year in its centers, in particular thanks to these machines which automatically detect their material. Only a quarter of the clothes that arrive here are recycled because their composition would be too complex with a lot of synthetic materials, as Koopera’s export manager explains to us. “HASith these new phenomena of fast-fashion and ultra-fast-fashion, it is more and more difficult to have pure compositions, there are more and more mixed compositions, different materials to make the same garment.”
So, what happens to articles that don’t pass this filter? Pwhy our clothing ended up in the United Arab Emirates and not in a French or Spanish thrift store?
According to Mango it did not meet the quality standards of European customers:
“Its condition was not considered good enough to be reused or resold, so it was exported.”
We shared our experience and the journey of our clothes to Zero Waste France, an association that fights against waste. for her, the promise of recycling is false and the brands would only shift the problem. “You should know that in reality, less than 1% of textile fibers today are recycled into new clothes,” recalls Manon Richert, the NGO’s communications manager. “These countries receive our textile waste for years and years so they already have the mass of clothes to deal with from previous years and it’s all just piling up really.”
At the time of the broadcast of this survey, and after having each traveled more than 20,000 kilometers, our 3 garments continue to emit, waiting for their second life.