Recycled cotton the fashion world’s antidote to environmental concerns
Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M offers HK$9 million annual prize for new techniques to recycle clothes; currently, recycled cotton content of an item of clothing cannot exceed 20 per cent
Hennes & Mauritz, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, is launching a fresh effort to promote recycling as it seeks to cut its environmental impact, boost its ethical credentials and address looming shortages of raw materials.
The move comes as critics point out the damage being caused by a throwaway culture fuelled by cheap clothing that has seen a sharp rise in the number of garments sold annually around the world.
Sweden’s H&M, which is launching a line of jeans containing recycled cotton next week, will offer an annual €1 million (HK$9 million) prize for new techniques to recycle clothes, according to chief executive Karl-Johan Persson.
“No company, fast-fashion or not, can continue exactly like today,” Persson says. “The prize’s largest potential lies with finding new technology that means we can recycle the fibres with unchanged quality.”
As population pressure mounts, retailers such as H&M are concerned about potential future shortages of cotton, which is heavily water and pesticide dependent.