Every year, H&M collects millions of used garments from its customers. Journalists from Aftonbladet investigated how sustainable this practice really is by attaching AirTag (an Apple-developed tracking device. AirTag is designed to act as a finder, helping people locate personal items) to ten items of clothing.
It was discovered that used clothes are being sent to places where these textile products are discarded and burned.
A summary of the Aftonbladet investigation
1. Each of the ten garments equipped with an AirTag was clean, with no stains or damage. None of them remained in Sweden. All were transported by lorry over 1,000 km to initial sorting facilities at three factories in Germany.
2. H&M promises that the collected clothes are handled in an environmentally friendly and responsible manner. Three out of the 10 garments were sent to third-world countries, where problems with textile waste are well-known and sufficiently serious.
3. One of the garments ended up in Benin, an African country that receives a huge amount of used clothing and where a large portion is discarded and burned. The importer who purchased the clothing admitted that it could later be smuggled into Nigeria, thereby circumventing restrictions the country has set to protect itself from used clothing.
4. Another garment ended up in Panipat, India. Here, too, there are serious problems with textile waste, and child labour is widespread in the textile industry.
5. Two of the garments were sent to Romania, covering a total distance of 3,730 kilometres using maritime transport.
6. Two of the garments were shredded, despite H&M's promise that there are garments that can be worn again. One of the items, a grey jumper, was practically unworn.
7. In total, the ten garments travelled nearly one and a half times around the globe using fossil fuel-powered vehicles, namely lorries and ships.
8. In Ghana, Africa, discarded clothes have caused an unprecedented environmental catastrophe. H&M is one of the five most common clothing brands that end up there.
9. Using customs data, we can reveal that H&M's three German sorting partners have shipped at least one million items of clothing to Ghana since 1 January 2023.
In a written response, an H&M spokesperson stated: The H&M Group is categorically against clothes becoming waste; this is in complete contradiction to our work to create a circular fashion industry.