What does H&M do with their unsold clothes?

Clothes should be made to last, not thrown away or burned if they aren’t sold fast enough.

But too many manufacturers are treating clothes less like your dependable old winter jacket, and more like disposable plastic bags or paper napkins.

Between 100 to 150 billion clothing items are made every year. Because we’re making more clothes than we can wear, millions of perfectly good garments are being thrown away without ever being sold or worn. That’s a colossal waste.

H&M produces billions of garments every year

H&M alone produces about 3 billion garments every year. You might think that no one could possibly sell that many clothes, and you’d be correct.

Fast fashion companies make and sell clothes so cheaply that their business model relies on constantly attracting customers with ever-changing trends and selling them far more clothing than they need.

They’re using precious resources to produce millions more tons of clothing than they can actually sell, and they’re shipping them all over the world to stores with no more room on their racks. Each season, fast fashion retailers like H&M are overproducing clothes by 30-40% — clothing they know won’t be sold.

In 2019, reporters revealed that mountains of perfectly good H&M garments were being thrown away or burned to be used as fuel for power plants. 

All this waste comes at a real cost. Creating a single cotton t-shirt takes about 700 gallons of water, and that’s not even counting the energy being used to create and transport it.

Overall, the fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions, which is more than the shipping and aviation industries combined.

Tell H&M: Don’t turn new clothes into more waste

H&M has an opportunity to set a new standard by taking a firm stance against clothing waste. The brand has been making good efforts toward becoming a more sustainable business, but if they continue producing clothing at their current rate– or even making more– there is no way that the brand can be truly sustainable.

As the former CEO Karl-Johan Persson indicated in a recent interview, even though the H&M Foundation is investing in textile recycling technology they seemingly have no intention of cutting back on their overproduction. If H&M only produced clothes it was likely to sell, it would mean a new chapter in sustainable clothing production.

We think consumer action could go a long way with H&M. If a major company like H&M can make this commitment, it would create a ripple effect across the industry that changes the world for good. 

As a company based in Sweden, legislation is already in place that prohibits clothing companies from landfilling or incinerating their overstock–  but only in the European Union. We want H&M to make the same commitment that they will not trash or burn their unsold, unworn clothing in the United States too. 

The world has enough waste already. We don’t need to add an avalanche of disposable clothing to the pile.

Send a message to H&M: Don’t turn new clothes into more waste.