Viewers often express shock at the trash in the comments. A comment on TikTok from user Sarah Corley said: “I just don’t understand why businesses throw good things they can donate so sadly into the trash I’m glad you take these things and donate them.” And many other users openly question how companies have allowed these policies to continue, where unused product is thrown out for no apparent reason. But the issue is not new.
In fact, many brands like H&M, Old Navy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Eddie Baur and Coach have been called out for this behavior for years. In 2010, H&M was criticized for throwing out pounds and pounds of new goods and even destroying them in order to can not be guarded by garbage collectors. New York Times broke the story and quickly became the second Most Tweeted Topic.
In 2020, Victoria’s Secret was called out for throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of bras and underwear. At the time, a company representative said they were showroom items that were thrown out after the store closed. This waste is a symptom of the fast fashion industry.
Fast fashion refers to the continuous release of low-quality clothing products at cheap prices. Clothes are not made for repeat seasonal wear, but rather based on the rapidly changing trends in the fashion world, meant to be worn only as long as they are in style. Items are priced so low that consumers find it hard to say no, and it’s easy for them to constantly dig out hard-wearing pieces for new, interesting styles.
The fast fashion industry has continued to grow since the early scandals in the 2010s. But have industry practices changed at all?
According to H&M, when it comes to dumping at least, they have. In 2020, H&M published a sustainability performance report, which included reports from all brands under the H&M Group, including Weekday, H&M Home, Arket and more. The report stated that the H&M Group would work on reducing operational waste, production waste and defective products. He boasts that “92 percent of the waste handled in H&M Group distribution centers was recycled or reused” in 2019 and addresses the concern about the destruction of clothing by saying that “we never send clothes to landfill and only destroy them.” in very few cases, where there is no other option.” The items they destroy usually burn. In the same report, H&M aims to use 30 percent recycled materials by 2025.
In a recent statement to Earth Island Journalan H&M representative reinforced this message: “We would like to emphasize that under no circumstances will unsold clothing that is safe to wear be destroyed… We have a strict policy that prohibits the destruction of any product that can be sold , used or recycled.”
The company appears to have changed other practices as well. In January of this year, Fast company reported that H&M had committed to a new environmental protocol that includes recycling unsold clothing, offering coupons for consumers to return used clothing, and offering sustainably produced clothing. It seems that H&M is using the power of its brand to try to address the problem of fashion pollution – or at least it’s trying to make things seem that way.
Other brands, too, seem to be rethinking their model. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, designer Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director, stated that the brand would focus on only two seasons a year to limit waste. So far, Gucci is the only high-end retailer to make seasonless clothes permanent, but it could be a step in the right direction.
But this does not mean that the practice of throwing away and destroying unsold items has ended. A 2021 report by a British newspaper found that a single Amazon warehouse in Scotland was throwing away millions of items a year. And if TikTok videos are to be believed, thrift stores, malls and pet stores around the world are still throwing out products and even destroying them. A video from 2021 shows boxes and boxes of brand new shoes that have been cut or slashed to prevent people from reusing them. Cut shoes is something a Nike store has been caught doing for years.
One reason these retailers destroy perfectly good products is because it costs money to send them to clothing recycling centers, where the clothing can be turned into reusable fibers. Another is the push to create an artificial scarcity mentality in their buyers so that their “buy before it’s gone” business model continues to work and so that people don’t expect to be able to find product unused for free.
Of course, it’s not just unsold clothing that gets thrown away. Consumers throw away large amounts of lightly worn clothing each year. The Environmental Protection Agency began tracking waste and recycling data on clothing and footwear in the 1960s. The increase in waste has grown exponentially over the past 60 years, but a noticeable jump can be seen in this chart starting in 1990. Fast fashion, incidentally, also became a household term during the 1990s. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, the US generated nearly 13 million tons of new clothing and footwear waste, 9 million tons of which ended up in landfills. The rest was recycled or incinerated. Compare that to 1.36 million tons of clothing and shoe waste in 1960. The US population nearly doubled during that period, but clothing waste increased nearly tenfold.
The environmental toll of this waste extends far beyond the landfill. According to some estimates, the fashion industry is responsible for 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Textile production also requires large amounts of water and causes significant water pollution. One of the main microplastics polluting our oceans is synthetic textiles from laundry. When fast fashion brands use cheap fabrics made up of fibers like acrylic and polyester, those microplastics end up immediately in the ocean, even if the clothes are reused and recycled.
