Take-back trickery: an investigation into clothing take-back schemes

Only one of the items was resold in the same country where it was initially deposited, a shirt returned After 11 months of tracking, the outcomes of the tracked items expose the discrep- to Zara’s Oxford Street shop in the UK. [...] While the possibility that these found a second home is promising, the egorised the journey of the trackers into four groups: resold within Europe, down- trade of used clothing in Ukraine was found to be something of a poisoned cycled (where clothing material is turned into other products of lower quality such chalice, adding to the burden of waste experienced by a country at war. [...] Two items went the life of the clothes we throw out, it is vital that the role of take-back schemes in through this company: one was burned for fuel at a cement plant and the other was this system is properly understood and integrated in the legislation. [...] Testimonies from on the ground showed how the mountains of textile waste overwhelming communities and ecosystems originate from well-known brands in the As a result of the fast-fashion trend and the resulting proliferation of cheap synthetic Global North, including those subsequently found in our trackers investigation to be clothing, a declining proportion of clothes is suitable for second-hand s. [...] From here the location of the H&M items became harder to trace through 2.4 Category 4: Shipped to Africa desk-based research, spending some days in unidentifiable warehouses or depots, before the skirt moved to a The most contentious category of trackers were those which were shipped even- vacant lot on the outskirts of the city, tually to countries in Africa.