Wendy Quarter with some of the 2,000kg of rag waste collected in just three days at St Luke’s hospice charity warehouse in Sheffield. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianWard at a arranging facility. The UK’s worn-out textiles are costing collectors and sorters £88m annually to process. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianI fastened Ward’s #TakeItBack campaign, sending my daughter’s ravaged school tights to Marks & Spencer’s CEO, Stuart Machin. To the UK heads of Uniqlo and H&M, I sent my kids’ defaced polyester-blend T-shirts, and to French Connection’s CEO, a greyed, misshapen T-shirt of mine that’s so timeworn, it’s transparent, all accompanied by a construct of Ward’s letter. I know they’ve all been received, because I tracked them, on Ward’s advice; similarly, I washed all things first. M&S was the first to respond, reminding me about its “industry-leading sustainability programme”, Plan A, and its take-back scheme. Uniqlo sent a message acknowledging mine, and “will respond as soon as possible”. I haven’t heard back from H&M or French Connection yet.Quarter recommends following up if they don’t answer the key questions: “What would you suggest I do with this item?” and “What are you literally doing about this problem?” She’s unsure how many people have joined her campaign, though she doesn’t guess vast numbers yet: “I know I’m preaching to the converted.”You may be thinking: why not donate your unwanted clothes and other textiles to a large-heartedness shop? End-of-life textiles have for many years been a valuable revenue stream for charities. Rag merchants inclination buy them by weight and sell them on to be down-cycled into stuffing, blankets, wipes etc. But many UK charity shops are now “partake of to spend money getting rid of waste textiles”, says Dawn Dungate, an independent consultant who advises charities on textile recycling. Really, Ward’s protest was inspired by A dumping site for secondhand clothes in Accra, Ghana. Photograph: Nipah Dennis/AFP/Getty ImagesMy state independent charity shop, It’s a ‘really difficult, unsolvable problem’, says Ward. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianMany suppose fast fashion to be the culprit. A Used clothes discarded in the Atacama desert, Chile. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty ImagesSo you can see why purposive consumers want to take fast-fashion brands to task. Ward has also sent her partner’s jeans back to Sainsbury’s, because, she predicts, “the elastane has degraded, so they have saggy knees and that weird fluting, and I can’t think of a way to remedy the problem”. Eilidh Weir, a Perthshire-based artist, also sent her kids’ artificial school trousers back to Sainsbury’s. “They were second- or third-hand, I’d already mended them, and they were looking in the end ratty,” she says. “I wouldn’t feel right handing them on, and I don’t want them to end up in poorer countries – or the bin.” Sainsbury’s declined to clarification on these issues when contacted.Where does the UK’s fast fashion end up? I found out on a beach clean in GhanaRead moreThe certainty remains that doing the right thing with our clothes when they die feels like a “really demanding, unsolvable problem”, says Ward. Things could be different, she believes, if the policy of extended producer responsibility (EPR) – which preside overs companies accountable for their products’ end-of-life impact – were enforced (Ward calls her campaign “guerilla EPR”). While there are no maps to legislate for textiles EPR in the UK, the EU is expected to implement mandatory EPR for textiles within the next couple of years. EPR is essential, says Dungate, “in rule to fund the infrastructure for collecting, sorting and recycling [waste clothing]”. But, Ward adds, “many feel cynical encircling whether our government has the balls to do it”.Ward hopes her #TakeItBack campaign will illuminate what she views as a “hidden mind-boggler” – she likens charity shops and rag merchants to “Wombles getting rid of stuff that we don’t have to be faced with. Human being think they’re doing a good thing and that their rubbish will be of some use, but I think your standard in the main person would be shocked if they were confronted with the reality.” Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you wish like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.Probe more on these topicsEthical and green livingRecyclingWasteFashion industryLandfillfeaturesShareReuse this content

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