H&M is giving £5 off a £25 voucher to customers who bring back old towels and unwanted clothes to stores. Many high street retailers offer freebies and discounts as an incentive to encourage shoppers to recycle clothing or empty beauty containers, but this can often be limited to their own brands. But H&M does things a little differently and allows customers to bring back ANY unwanted clothes or home textiles, including old towels and bed sheets, regardless of which retailer they were originally purchased from - and in any condition. 

H&M first launched its global garment collecting programme in 2013 and it says it is the biggest in the world of its kind. The aim is to allow old clothing and textiles to be reused and recycled to help cut the amount of items ending up in landfill.

H&M says: “Here’s a not-so-fun fact: Today, less than 1% of the materials used to make clothes get recycled each year. This means that thousands of tonnes of textiles end up in landfills. By reusing or recycling fashion, we can turn that around.

“Over 10% of a garment’s total impact on the climate happens after you’ve left the store. Things like how often you wash your clothes or if you toss them in the rubbish instead of recycling, have an effect. So, how you take care of them really matters!

“Don’t want it? Recycle. Our Garment Collecting programme has been going since 2013 and we have recycling boxes in our stores across the globe. It works like this:

1. Take any unwanted clothes or textiles, by any brand and in any condition, to one of our stores.
2. Hand in your bag of old clothes at the cash desk and receive a thank you voucher to use towards your next purchase. Easy!”

The retailer says H&M members will earn 20 points and a £5 digital voucher which can be used on any £25 spend in stores. The points will appear on members’ Points History page and will transform into vouchers, which are redeemable with future purchases. Vouchers are valid for purchases in-store and online.

The unwanted towels, clothes and other textiles that have been dropped off will then be sorted by into one of three categories:

• Rewear - any items that can be worn again will be re-sold as second-hand clothing.
• Reuse - If clothes or textiles aren’t suitable for rewear they will be turned into other products, such as remake collections or cleaning cloths. 
• Recycle - All other clothes and textiles are shredded into textile fibres and used for things like insulation materials.

H&M adds: “We want to encourage you to make smarter shopping choices, by rewarding you for small everyday actions. How you plan your visit to our stores or how you care for your favourite pieces may not seem like a big deal. But all together, it does make a difference. And that's worth getting rewarded for, don't you think?”