Increasingly, sellers of clothing are also taking back clothing – for recycling, that is. Companies like H&M offer discounts on new apparel for drop-offs of used items. The idea is to keep old clothing out of landfills. Fair Harbor goes a step further, using recycled plastic bottles in its swimwear. These are steps toward sustainability in an industry that, critics say, remains too reliant on a business model of disposability. But the old apparel often ends up merely shipped overseas or used to insulate homes.
Fashion companies should encourage people to keep their clothes longer and teach them how to properly wash them, some promoters of greener practices say. And that can require a shift in consumer thinking, too, given the way many people simply get tired of what’s hanging in their closet.
Some are making that shift. Canadian Sarah Jean Harrison says sustainable clothing is typically more expensive, “but you can use your buying power to make small changes, even if you just reduce how much you buy from a fast-fashion outlet.”
