In a bid to minimize fashion waste, UK-based retail chain John Lewis has launched a clothing buy-back scheme, in association with Stuffstr, a corporation dedicated to recycling customers’ old products. The move is aimed at reducing 300,000 tonnes of clothing which is sent to landfills annually in the UK.
The company has launched the scheme via an app, which will give the details of the products the customer has bought from John Lewis in the last five years. The customers can then select what they wish to ‘sell back’ to the company.
The scheme is applicable once the cart if full with clothes minimum of 50 pounds worth. Once the cart if full. the company will send a courier at customer’s premises to collect the garments, within three hours. After the items are picked up, the customer will be emailed a John Lewis e-gift card for the value of the items returned.
These clothes would either go to second-hand clothing stores, mended for resale and recycled into new products.
It is estimated that around 4,000 pounds worth of clothes are owned by an average UK household and 30 per cent of them is left unused for at least a year.
More than 27,000 electrical products were upcycled by the high street retailer, under a similar scheme last year.
John Lewis Partnership operates 49 shops across the UK, besides johnlewis.com, 352 Waitrose shops, waitrose.com and business-to-business contracts.
