What is it? Marks & Spencer, the British institution aiming to become “the world’s most sustainable major retailer”, coined the term Shwopping. The idea is to drop off unwanted clothes (any brand) at M&S when you pop in to buy something new.
What makes it susty? M&S donates your cast offs to Oxfam, who resells, reuses or recycles them. These clever infographics show what items Oxfam needs most.
What makes it sexy? In return, you get to enter a weekly prize draw to win a £100 M&S giftcard.
My verdict: If M&S can make “buy one, give one” a habit for shoppers, diverting 350 million items of clothing from landfill each year, that’s a big deal. But will the chance to win a voucher be enough to remind and convince customers to go to the trouble? And am I the only one who finds Joanna Lumley in a Katherine Hamnett style t-shirt a strange way to promote this?
Hey Daianna – congratulations on the cool site.
Re. Shwopping – I do like the website page, with the map showing you real time where people are making exchanges, and the drag and drop diagram to show what each garment can be worth.
I’m not sure on its own this is going to ingrain new habits in a generation of shoppers, but it’s interesting and well done.
I agree with Mallen. At first I couldn’t get my head around the point of the whole thing. After all, I NEVER throw clothes in the bin, unless they’re beyond repair. I always have a charity collection on the go, to be dropped off when it’s full. However, when I realised how many perfectly good clothes were ending up in landfill I understood the drive. But is this really going to make people behave any differently? The majority of clothes already donated may well come from people who would have donated them anyway… Personally, I think that the policy of local charities posting plastic donation bags through letterboxes, and stating which day they will be collected, is far more likely to encourage people who usually chuck old clothes to donate them instead. I vote Susty – sort of – and agree about Joanna Lumley!
I vote Susty, but a start is a start, at least someone is on the right track!