<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/29/you-sold-it-now-recycle-it-the-protesters-mailing-worn-out-clothes-to-the-shops-they-bought-them-from>
"In February, a threadbare polycotton bedsheet landed on the desk of Simon
Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s. A “protest by post”, it had been sent by the
Sheffield-based designer, maker and eco activist Wendy Ward. “I purchased this
from Sainsbury’s at least 10 years ago,” she wrote in the accompanying letter.
“It has served me well. However, I have no sustainable options available for
what I should do with it.” Beyond repair, it was too damaged to donate to a
charity shop, she explained. She couldn’t compost it as it had been blended
with polyester, and she couldn’t repurpose it as cleaning cloths, as, being
polycotton, it wasn’t absorbent. And, she added, “I don’t want to put it into a
textile recycling collection as the likelihood is that it will be shipped
overseas or incinerated and not recycled.” Ward qualified her assertions with
links to respected sources – as a sustainable fashion PhD student, she is well
informed on such matters.
“The only action I can personally take,” she continued, “is to put it into my
general waste bin. I don’t want to do this, as in Sheffield all general waste
is incinerated as ‘energy recovery’. This isn’t a sustainable option as such
processes have been shown to be as damaging to local air pollution as burning
coal.” So, she concluded, “as Sainsbury’s is responsible for designing and
manufacturing this product, making decisions to use polycotton with no
consideration for what could be done once it reaches the end of its life, I
have decided to return it to you. I would really love to hear what you decide
to do with it.”
Sainsbury’s response, sent from its executive office, was “a lame fob-off”,
Ward says, and read as if it had been “cut and pasted from a complaints
template”. (Sample platitude: “Sainsbury’s always welcome feedback from
customers.”) But when she shared her protest with her 20,000 Instagram
followers, the resounding approval – “Brilliant!” “Please upload your template”
– motivated her to launch a campaign: #TakeItBack. She created an adaptable,
deliberately non-combative letter (“If you’re confrontational, it won’t go
anywhere,” she tells me), and encouraged her followers to return their dead
clothes to brands. “It’s an empowering action,” she says. “I was wresting back
a bit of control as a consumer.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
