[fifilura]

Also the clothes industry!

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.

[fifilura]

A follow up

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet added a airtags in clothes "recycled" by H&M. Guess where they ended up?

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/jlME1e/aftonbladet-inve...

[542458]

I’m a bit confused as to how this investigation worked - how can they tell if clothes were ground for fiber with just airtags?

[playingalong]

Not sure if they did this, but they could fly over a reporter to last place they observed the AirTag and have them look around.

[fifilura]

FWIW This is one of the sources, in Swedish though.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/0QxkyA/modets-morker-5-...

At the end there they list the fate of 10 different garments they returned to H&M.

You can evaluate yourself if you find this environmentally friendly or not.

[fifilura]

(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)

[fifilura]

TL;DR

1. They travelled to the location (in Togo).

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.

Edit:formatting

[eru]

> He was about to try to resell them (along with huge bales of clothes), [...]

Regardless of what else is happening, reselling the clothes as is seems to be the best form of 'recycling' to me. Or rather 'reuse'.

> 4. Most of the garments travel around the world as waste - not exactly good for the environment.

As long as they travel by boat, the cost for that is minuscule. Both in terms of dollars and in terms of emissions.

(Yes, the ocean shipping industry burns a lot in absolute terms, but per kg of moved goods it is very, very efficient.)

[fifilura]

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.

[eru]

> 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?

The transportation impact is minuscule either way, so I don't think it matters which side is slightly bigger or smaller?

[eru]

> Also the clothes industry!

Compare Bangladesh: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

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.