{"id":2886,"date":"2008-04-14T13:59:29","date_gmt":"2008-04-14T19:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/2008\/04\/14\/life-goggles-marks-spencer-and-oxfam-exchange-clothes\/"},"modified":"2008-04-14T13:59:29","modified_gmt":"2008-04-14T19:59:29","slug":"life-goggles-marks-spencer-and-oxfam-exchange-clothes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/life-goggles-marks-spencer-and-oxfam-exchange-clothes\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Goggles: Marks & Spencer and Oxfam Exchange Clothes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: Most weeks, we feature product reviews<\/a> from our friends at Life Goggles<\/a>. In this week’s post, though, Joel takes a look at British retailer Marks & Spencer’s innovative approach to dealing with products at the end of their useful lives: clothing recycling. This post was originally published<\/a> on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ms_plana.jpg\"<\/a>For 6 months (that started at the end of January), Marks & Spencer (M&S) have joined forces with Oxfam<\/a> to set up a clothing exchange<\/a>. Designed with the dual purpose of encouraging people to recycle clothes and raise money for Oxfam’s work, customers who donate M&S clothes to Oxfam will receive a voucher \u00a35\/\u20ac7, valid for one month, to use with their next purchase of \u00a335\/\u20ac50 or more. Although buying new clothes paid for with old clothes isn’t the best way of doing things in my opinion, it’s certainly not a bad way of encouraging people to recycle clothes if they are planning on buying more anyway. And perhaps they\u2019ll find something they like in Oxfam!<\/p>\n

This is part of M&S’s Plan A<\/a> – a five year, 100 point “eco-plan” that also includes charging for plastic bags<\/a>. It’s nice to see a retailer with firm actions in place and a willingness to do them. Their five pillars, to achieve by 2012, are:<\/p>\n