If you’re a fashion-lover like Valley, you probably rejoiced with a shameless happy dance when you found out an H&M was moving into Downtown State College. Fashion is an integral part of our lives here at Penn State because what we wear to football games, out on Friday nights or to the career fair is almost as important as the destinations themselves. With the welcoming of H&M to the neighborhood, Penn Staters are able to regularly update their wardrobes with clothing from a contemporary, affordable brand that values sustainability in the fashion industry.
Why be trendy and sustainable? Because the fashion industry is currently assessed as the second largest polluter in the world, trailing behind only the oil industry. Affordable fast-fashion, like that of H&M, has largely been manufactured the same, linear way for years. Raw materials transform into textiles which are assembled into clothes, shipped and sold to the consumer and then reach their final resting place in a Goodwill store or the landfill.
This resource-sucking sequence places a strain on the environment that consumers are hardly aware of. However, as awareness grows of the immense stress the fashion industry is placing on global ecology, H&M is attempting to take strides toward producing socially and environmentally sustainable fashion.
To do their part for future generations of Earth, H&M is working towards a circular business model where reusable and recycled fabrics will replace raw materials in the cycle to create new fashions.
So, what can we, the lovers of fashion, do to help? Recycle our old clothes!
Did you know, 95 percent of clothes that are thrown away could have been re-worn or recycled? Most donate unwanted, good-condition clothes to charity, but clothing of any condition can be recycled at our hometown H&M. Next time you need to downsize your wardrobe, work to complete the circle of fashion sustainability by recycling your unwanted clothes in H&M’s recycling bin located next to their cash registers (and maybe pick up a new top as a reward!)
Whether your style has a preppy touch, bohemian vibe or rocker influence, one thing is for certain: fashion never belongs in the landfill. Our clothes deserve better!
