BURNING CLOTHES - DO I HAVE TO SET MYSELF ON FIRE TO MAKE YOU AWARE?

By: Milan Flíček, with editing support by Barbora Sura Introduction

Have you ever asked yourself what happens with the unsold clothes or with the clothes you recycle? The ugly truth of our otherwise glamorous fashion industry is that there is a massive overproduction of clothes and that is why tons of clothes are burnt. I will walk you through various cases of companies that have been burning or have burnt clothes in the past, with a primary focus on the group BESTSELLER. After an email communication with this group’s representative, it is clear that the brands under the BESTSELLER umbrella do not aim to make a real change or at least act transparently. I conclude that the current situation asks for activism. I will suggest some solutions on how to stop this practice and ways to move towards a more sustainable solution.

Activism

Activism is perceived as a great way to inform people about critical issues in any industry. I took inspiration from Jan Palach, a twenty-year-old student in 1960’s Czechoslovakia. With his activist act of self-immolation he motivated crowds of people to demonstrate, who later managed to make the necessary political changes. This example works as a great parallel between the current problem of burning clothes and our understanding that activism is a way to open people’s eyes and encourage them to act.

In 1968 in socialist Czechoslovakia, the events and protests of the Prague Spring aiming for political liberalization from Soviet control were having a bigger and bigger impact. However, in August 1968, the armies of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the reformative demonstrations. Jan Palach, who until then was taking part in public demonstrations, began to understand that the spirit of the Czech and Slovak nations was slowly beginning to be taken over by the occupiers. A great activist work needed to be done to boost the trampled national self-confidence. He stated, ”there are certain times in history when something needs to be done. Now is the time. In half a year, in a year it will be too late” (Palach 1969). On the morning of January 16, 1969, Jan Palach set himself on fire in the main square in Prague.

Palach’s death did not immediately change the regime in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It was forbidden to speak about his activism. Only after 20 years when the regime switched from socialist to democratic in 1989, his act was celebrated and acknowledged by the authorities as something we shall never allow to happen again. After reflecting on this type of activism, and connecting it to the fashion industry and the practice of burning unsold clothing, I began to ask what it would take to reform the current, unsustainable and unethical fashion system.

Overproduction and Burning Clothes

The reason behind fashion brands burning tons of clothing is their overproduction. Based on BBC data from the period between 2018 and 2020 (Abigail Beall), approximately 677 tons of new clothes have been thrown away every year. That equates to about 2.7 million t-shirts per year. Globally, an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste is created each year. This amount is equivalent to a single

garbage truck full of clothes ending up on landfill sites every second. Fashion brands do not want to tarnish their name, they want to keep themselves on top of the ”food chain” as high-end brands. To keep this ”luxurious brand” status, brands burn excess goods instead of selling the goods for half price or donating them.

Based on BBC data from the period between 2018 and 2020 (Abigail Beall), approximately 677 tons of new clothes have been thrown away every year. That equates to about 2.7 million t-shirts per year. Globally, an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste is created each year.

Burberry case

The practice of burning stock is widespread across the retail industry. It is often used as a safeguard to prevent unwanted items being sold at a significant discount. Burberry, Britain’s largest luxury label, revealed that it burned clothing and cosmetics worth 28.6 million pounds. At that time, Burberry said that it destroyed only items that carried its trademark and that the burning of cosmetics was a one-off action related to a license with the beauty company Coty. A Burberry’s spokesman claimed that the goods were burnt “in a responsible manner.” Kirsten Brodde (2018), who heads the “Detox My Fashion” campaign at the environmental charity Greenpeace, said that Burberry “shows no respect for its products, the hard work behind them, and natural resources that were used to make them.” In 2018, Burberry said it would cease burning stock immediately as a reaction to this great revelation. Other luxury labels, including Richemont and Louis Vuitton, have been accused of destroying unsold watches and handbags so they cannot be bought at reduced prices. Nike has faced allegations of deliberately damaging unwanted stock. On the other hand, other major brands across the fashion industry are starting to pay attention to the demand for more sustainable practices.

Burberry, Britain’s largest luxury label, revealed that it burned clothing and cosmetics worth 28.6 million pounds

BESTSELLER case

To have an overview of the local fashion landscape, I asked the fashion brand ONLY what their current attitude is to overproduction and approach to the burning of garments. ONLY belongs to one of Denmark’s largest groups of fashion brands BESTSELLER that have previously burned many tons of clothing (Hendriksz 2018). Below is the response I received from their representative:

“Dear Milan, ONLY is part of the BESTSELLER group and my answer is therefore applicable for all BESTSELLER brands. At BESTSELLER, we always strive to optimise our buying process to have the right products, at the right time and at the right price in the stores. We have no financial or environmental interest in excess products or destroying undamaged items. Should one of our stores have some excess products, the majority can be sold at reduced prices. In the unlikely event that we have some styles which for some reason cannot be sold in the stores at all – e.g. in the light of a crisis such as COVID-19 – we are looking into several solutions. Perhaps the products can be stored and sold next year instead. Maybe it can be resold in other markets than initially planned for. We have actually recently launched an online outlet in some markets. If we in the end do not think it is possible to sell the products at all, we can donate them; for example, we have ongoing collaborations with Red Cross in numerous markets. Furthermore, we have a cooperation with I:CO (a take-back system that collects used clothing and shoes and gives them a new life through reuse or recycling) and more innovative recycling collabs to come. In general, circular innovation is on top of our agenda. BESTSELLER has an ambition to increase the use of more sustainable materials, including recycled clothing, year-on-year until all our products are circular by design. It’s a crucial part of our sustainability strategy ‘Fashion FWD’. Circularity in materials has great benefits, from reducing waste to restoring and regenerating ecosystems

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that produce natural fibres, also through digitalising our design approach, we can minimise waste from the very start of the creative process.

Best regards, MORTEN NORLYK BESTSELLER COMMUNICATION / SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION MANAGER Friday, 20 November 2020 “

This was a very general answer and I therefore asked again if it means that at this present moment in 2020 BESTSELLER no longer burns any clothes? Or are they trying to achieve this goal? Their response was:

“Dear Milan, We do not burn clothes that are fit for use. We have no economic or environmental interest in destroying products that we don’t find fault with. In BESTSELLER, we dispose of damaged products (mostly due to water and mould damages occurring during transportation) that cannot be sold or reused in any other way due to consumer safety considerations. Damaged products are disposed of in the most economically and environmentally suitable way: down-cycling by converting damaged products to energy through combustion. Seeking to wash the mould out of damaged products would require additional resources (water, chemicals, transportation, handling) and even then, traces of mould might still remain. The number of damaged products being converted into energy constitutes approximately 0.1 per mille of the total number of products being shipped to our central warehouse. It is the equivalent of a supermarket discarding one in 10,000 tomatoes that has gone bad.”

MORTEN NORLYK BESTSELLER COMMUNICATION / SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION MANAGER 26 November 2020

As the article focused on BESTSELLER by Frederiksen et al. (2020:1) states, one can still use clothes that have been water damaged. Additionally, it is also very suspicious that companies like BESTSELLER have so much water damage. Another solution to prevent clothes from burning could be recycling. However, based on the text by Gonzales (2020:2), it has to be emphasised that more than half of the clothes that are sent to recycling are also burnt. It is therefore necessary to stop companies from creating the excess material from the outset. As a result of my research, I suggest three directions which can improve this situation: introduction of quotas, using deadstock materials, and activism.

To reduce overproduction, it is necessary that governments set limits or quotas on how the fashion companies produce clothes and in what quantities. Furthermore, to avoid overexploitation of natural resources, the fashion companies have to use their deadstock materials. ”Using existing or recycled, rather than virgin materials offers an opportunity to drastically reduce non-renewable resource inputs and the negative impacts of the industry, like CO2 emissions, water, and chemical use” (Prajapati 2018). Lastly, to fast-forward the implementation of quotas or usage of deadstock by fashion brands, activism is the tool to do it. Whether it is protesting in front of parliaments, calling out brands on their unsustainable practices, or supporting organizations which have this on their agenda, we have the power and means to change these practices .

Through continuous efforts, we can achieve change. The steps we are taking now will have a great impact in the future. I, therefore, made a statement by creating an activist fashion collection as my MA graduation project at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen (profiled in Issue 3 of The Critical Pulse). The collection is an activist act, provoking companies that still burn or have burned clothes in the past, and raising awareness about this problem. I will continue with my activism until quotas on clothing production are introduced and the burning of clothes is stopped entirely. Do I also have to self-immolate to make you aware?