By Sangeeta Haindl
One of the U.K.'s biggest and most loved department store, Marks and Spencers (M&S) launches a social innovation campaign called 'shwopping' to stop the one in four items of clothing bought in this country ending up in bins. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, "U.K. consumers throw away 2m tonnes of clothing a year, with half going straight to landfill." Shoppers will now be encouraged to take their unwanted garments into all 342 M&S stores and leave them in recycling bins by the tills.
M&S is a store which is very much part of the British fabric and is what 'Macy is to the U.S. shopper'. It wants to create a social innovation trend through 'shwopping' and stimulate a "buy one, give one" culture that allow unwanted items to be resold, reused or recycled by its charity partner Oxfam. The store is encouraging customers to bring in old or unwanted clothes whenever they buy something new. The project is part of the company's Plan A programme and an expansion of a partnership with Oxfam which originally started in January 2008 and has seen more than 10m items donated, worth an estimated £8m ($12,720,000). Donors handing old M&S clothing into Oxfam stores received a £5 ($8) M&S voucher.
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