The maritime industry, more than "the West", is a prime culprit there. Let's also mention how they skirt taxation, the use of flags of convenience, the lack of protection for crews, the matrioshka shell companies...
The clothes brands claim to recycle cotton, but use 3rd party "recycling companies" to ship the textiles to Africa, where they just burn it in huge waste heaps. With huge environmental issues.
(This comment was not meant to be snarky although I realize it may look like it. I just did not have time to write a proper comment/translate to the article earlier. See my later answer in the sibling)
2. They found the guy who imported the jeans. He was about to try to resell them (along with huge bales of clothes), but most of the clothes are not sold. I dont think recycling was at the top of his mind.
3. The last signal was from a place where they use to make a fire of the clothes.
4. Most of the garments travel around the world as waste - not exactly good for the environment.
The person from H&M responded with whataboutisms. Which is not exactly legit since they use this in marketing.
The point is that you can say the same thing about the ships they sail to Bangladesh for breaking up.
Sail them to Bangladesh, they are responsible for "recycling", problem solved.
The problem is that the place they end up looks like a huge dump where clothes end up to die. And with huge environmental problems. And health problems.
I am aware that shipping has less environmental impact, but was it really the intention that the clothes should have the same transportation impact when being "recycled" as when they were first manufactured? I'll let you come up with the numbers.
Bangladesh has seen enormous economic growth in the past few decades, largely on the back of textile 'sweatshops' and also ship breaking. Real average Bangladeshis are better off as a result.
Granted, they went from 'dirt poor' to 'poor'. But that's still an enormous improvement. And more of a (relative) improvement than most other countries during the same time; and more of an improvement than in almost all other places throughout history.
The clothes brands claim to recycle cotton, but use 3rd party "recycling companies" to ship the textiles to Africa, where they just burn it in huge waste heaps. With huge environmental issues.
https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/54589/how-fast-fas...
Computer "recycling" in Lagos/Nigeria is another topic.