The Truth About Recycled Material Clothes

As I am sure you have seen, there’s a sharp increase in fashion focused companies promoting lines made from recycled materials as a response to the ever-growing climate crisis. A step in the right direction from such a damaging industry, however, is this the right direction or are these companies simply fooling us?

In today’s world, more and more fashion houses have been placed under fire from the public for “greenwashing”, a term explaining that the company is implying it is sustainable but behind the scenes are continuing unsustainable production. This is easily done through use of the colour green in promotional images and adverts and by sticking words such as “recycled’ on labels. People think that they are making a more planet conscious purchase but in fact, the company is still as bad as ever but simply uses 20% recycled fabric on a few garments. This doesn’t highlight the millions of units that are still being made which continues to encourage consumption or the other 80% of material and what it is made of is often left out of the advertisement. Or the air miles from factory to store and the underpaid factory worker making the garment. This is not to say that using recycled materials is a bad thing, however it gives the buyer a false sense of security and can make some feel better about the purchase as it seems better than shopping fast fashion, however the purchase is still from a fast fashion brand and still causes environmental harm. As brands are not 100% transparent in their production, don’t be fooled by collections using or containing “recycled materials”, instead read into the brand, collection, and individual garments first before buying as this may open your eyes to whether the company is leading you on.

One example I’d like to use here is H&M, we all know their name has been dragged by the industry before, however in recent times, more of their garments have been made from recycled materials. But upon closer investigation, most of these collections still use harmful fabrics like polyester, and their conscious garments containing cotton have only 20% recycled material, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t very much at all. It causes consumers to believe it is ok to shop at H&M if they shop in their conscious department, but many of their items have minor amounts of planet-friendly fabrics meaning it’s not much better than a regular garment at the brand.

Why are we not calling for brands to do better? If you cannot make a garment that is made from over 80% recycled material, should they be able to promote it as recycled at all? They could make more of an effort, but will they? Not unless peoples buying habits change. This brand in focus has made a significant effort to be more sustainable since the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, but I believe that such a huge company should be working faster to help encourage others to do so too.