H&M will soon offer customers in Sweden the possibility to transform unwanted garments into new fashions with the help of garment-to-garment recycling system 'Looop'.
Looop opens to the public in a Drottninggatan store in Stockholm on October 12. This is the first time this garment-to-garment recycling system is shown in store by a fashion retailer, and H&M will soon offer customers the opportunity to watch this container-sized machine recycle their old textiles into something new. This is part of a bigger plan - H&M's ambition is to become fully circular and climate positive.
"We are constantly exploring new technology and innovations to help transform the fashion industry as we are working to reduce the dependency on virgin resources. Getting customers on board is key to achieve real change and we are so excited to see what Looop will inspire," says Pascal Brun, Head of Sustainability at H&M.
Looop uses a technique that dissembles and assembles old garments into new ones. The garments are cleaned, shredded into fibres and spun into new yarn which is then knitted into new fashion finds. Some sustainably sourced virgin materials need to be added during the process. The system uses no water and no chemicals, thus having a significantly lower environmental impact than when producing garments from scratch.
By 2030 H&M aims for all materials to be either recycled or sourced in a more sustainable way, a figure that for 2019 was at 57%.
