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Recycling and Reducing Waste - Primark Cares

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Recycling and Reducing Waste

Primark is working to reduce and recycle waste

We’re committed to reducing fashion waste across all areas of our business. From the raw materials we source, to the cardboard boxes we transport our goods in and the unsold clothes in our stores, we’re stepping up and doing more to manage our waste and working to recycle as much as possible.

Minimising packaging

As a global retailer with hundreds of stores across Europe and the United States, we’re working to reduce the environmental impact of our stores as much as possible. This ranges from making them more energy efficient to managing the amount of waste they produce or recycle. To keep costs down and reduce our environmental impact, we’ve devised a new approach to getting products to stores. It’s designed to minimise packaging and waste at every stage of the process – from packing in factories through to sales in-store. For example, we ask factories to use just one plastic bag for a whole set of t-shirts, instead of having every product individually wrapped.

We’re committed to increasing the levels of recycling within our stores, particularly for cardboards, plastics and hangers.

Our iconic brown paper bags have been spotted on high streets since 2001 and is one of the best examples of reducing plastic use. Last Christmas we encouraged people reuse that bag for wrapping paper.

To reduce the number of trucks on the road and the amount of onsite waste collections at our stores, for many years we have used the same trucks that deliver our products to collect waste and take it back to our distribution centers.

As part of this process, we’ve established Resource Recovery Units in our UK and German depots. From here the cardboard, plastic and hangers that are collected at our UK and Northern European stores are reprocessed and sent for onward recycling or energy recovery. This ‘backhauling’ arrangement allows us to be actively involved in the recycling process and has significantly reduced the volume of third-party waste collections from our stores.

In store we’re seeking to reduce single use plastics. Clothes hangers are estimated to account for around two thirds of total single use plastic within Primark. We’re aiming to move to recycled materials for all hangers – helping to reduce the carbon footprint of hangers by 40%. The durable new hanger design will be made of a minimum of 90% recycled polypropylene and can be used multiple times. Alongside reusing hangers retained in stores, we will collect unusable hangers to be recycled and made into new hangers.

As one of our main sources of non-clothing waste, product packaging is one of our priority focus areas. We have established a Packaging Centre of Excellence to look closely at our packaging and explore ways to reduce it. Since 2019, we estimate to have removed and/or avoided over 1 billion units of single-use plastic components from our business.

The second largest use of plastic packaging is the film used to protect our garments during transit. We’ve developed a process to collect the waste film from UK distribution centres and send it to partners for separation and processing. The reprocessed material is transformed into Post Consumer Recycled (PCR certified) pellets which are then used to manufacture new film. Where there is no alternative material plastic currently available, we’re increasing our use of recycled content in our plastic packaging, helping minimising our reliance on virgin materials.

There are some items that need packaging for protection or hygiene reasons, for example, ladies’ briefs. This year, we’ve removed the SUP hook and replaced it with a cardboard alternative that’s colour-coded to help customers find the right size. We’ve also reduced the thickness of the plastic bag from 65 micron to 60 micron. And while this may seem like a small difference, it has helped us reduce our plastic use by 2.7 tonnes. We’ve made similar changes in other ranges, such as replacing the plastic hook with cardboard one on a number of items in kidswear socks and tights. We’ve also trialled a new baby clothes range designed with cardboard hangers.

WE CARE ABOUT CLOTHES WASTE

Reducing clothing waste

We’re committed to becoming a circular and more sustainable business by 2030. As part of our commitment to give clothes a longer life and to help protect life on the planet, we are working hard to reduce clothing waste.

Donating clothing and textiles in store

Clothes should be worn again and again. However, if our customers want to give their pre-loved clothes a new life, we offer a textile takeback scheme in our stores. Established in conjunction with recycling specialist Yellow Octopus, our scheme allows customers to donate any brand of pre-loved clothing, textiles, footwear and bags at collection boxes in any one of our stores across the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany and The Netherlands.

Each donated item is sorted and graded by Yellow Octopus to be re-loved by someone else. If it can’t be given a second life, the clothes or textiles will be recycled into materials such as mattress filler or insulation. In the UK, we’ve also partnered with Yellow Octopus to trial their ‘Upcycle Labs’ technology, which uses textile waste to create new home products such a soap dishes, vases, and candle holders.

The funds raised through our textile takeback scheme will support UNICEF in providing better access to education, health, water, and hygiene as well as life-saving aid to children in need.

We’re keen to extend our Textile Takeback scheme across other markets but will only do so when we can be confident our programme complies with local regulations and works for the infrastructure and customers in that country.

We also have our UK Take Back Textiles locations available in WRAP’s recycling locator tool. This makes it easier for our customers to donate in our stores.

You can also contact your local council to check what services they offer.

Ever wonder what happens to stock we don’t sell?

We have an efficient business model, so we try to minimise excess stock. Where we do have leftover stock, we work with partners to ensure any unsold stock is donated, resold or recycled if it can no longer be worn.

In the USA, we partner with Delivering Good, a non-profit organisation that takes donations of new fashion, home and children’s products and redistributes these to support people affected by poverty and tragedy.

In UK and ROI, we partner with Newlife who sell and recycle the clothes to raise funds to buy equipment and pay specially trained nurses to support disabled and terminally ill children and their families.

In Europe, our in-store recycling partner Yellow Octopus manages any unsold stock, sorting it and sending it for reuse or to be recycled. Items in good condition are resold through resale partners authorised by Yellow Octopus.

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