Marks & Spencer, Britain's biggest fashion retailer, announced on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 that it, together with with Oxfam, was launching a clothes recycling scheme. Individuals who donate unwanted clothes to Oxfam will receive a £5 M&S voucher in return, with the exception of donations of lingerie, underwear, swimwear, hosiery and socks. To be perfectly truthful; the latter items, e.g. lingerie, underwear, swimwear, hosiery and socks, used, do not belong into a thrift store but into a rag bag or rag recycling scheme.
Marks & Spencer has teamed up with Oxfam to reduce the one million tonnes of clothing sent to landfill each year, and that's a lot of rags. In the so-called "clothes exchange", vouchers will be valid for one month against purchases of £35 or more of M&S clothing, homeware or beauty products.
But there is a snag, folks. Each bag of clothes donated to Oxfam shops must contain at least one item of M&S clothing, no matter how old. So, they are not all that daft, are they, giving away vouchers for any kind of bag old old clothes being brought to Oxfam. So, rather than being a great incentive in helping reduce the mountain of rags thrown into the by giving people incentive to bring in their used clothes to Oxfam it is, so it would appear to this write, not much more than just a nice PR stunt and gimmick. “Seen to be green”, is the motto here, apparently.
The clothes exchange will run for a six-month trial from January 28. Some 790 branches of Oxfam across the UK and Republic of Ireland will give out the vouchers, which will be valid for only a month. Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam, said: "Recycling and reusing clothes - and anything else we can sell - has always been central to Oxfam's fundraising, as well as being good for the environment." No one can deny the truth in the statement by Oxfam but, I am afraid that knowing some of the practices this charity has employed in the past to solicit financial donations from people this writer has his reservations as to how green the thoughts really are here.
A spokeswoman for Ethical Consumer magazine welcomed the M&S initiative, but called on the retailer to take the lead in "using recycled textiles for the new clothes they want us to buy".
The Green (Living) Review in addition to the call by the Ethical Consumer magazine would like to encourage people instead of buyin new all the time to actually buy their clothes (and other items) used, often they are even new or as new, at Charity Shops, such as Oxfam, but more so even in those that support local causes, such as in the North-East Surrey area where Green (Living) Review is based, the St Raphael's Hospice Shops and those of the Children's Trust. Think local!
While there certainly are worthy causes in the Charity Shop realm – all of them in the main – it would be much better if we would support our local charities and their shops before we would the big national and even international ones. Think local.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), January 2008