2023-09-30 10:17:00
Around ten activists carried out a “punching” action on Saturday morning in front of the ready-to-wear brand H&M located in the Brussels shopping street Rue Neuve to denounce the “social and environmental abuses of fast fashion”. With a few words, a rapper criticized the practices of the clothing store chain. In addition to a few activists, environmentalist MEP Saskia Bricmont also spoke.
The Fair Fashion collective set up this action in response to the publication of a survey carried out by the NGO Changing Markets. This highlighted “greenwashing” (or “greenwashing”, a marketing process allowing a company to give itself a misleading image of responsibility towards the environment) of the used clothing take-back systems that promote certain brands. The latter thus promise to offer a second life to old clothes, either by giving them to people in need, or by recycling them.
However, the NGO’s survey shows that the reality is very different: 76% of clothes are in fact destroyed or abandoned. According to activists, H&M is a brand particularly representative of this environmentally destructive market. In addition to “greenwashing” practices, activists also accuse the brand of having fired employees during their pregnancy, of charging wages below a decent standard of living and of overproducing textiles in its factories. “The work rates are hellish. One employee even declared that she fell ill once a month on average, that she didn’t eat enough… ‘We can’t even stop to go to the toilet, we sometimes go back to the factory to finish the job…'”, relayed one of the members of the Fair Fashion collective, quoting a worker. “I have two words that come to mind: shame!”, she concluded.
H&M
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