Recycle your clothes and get your money back!

We've all heard of recycling glass, paper, metal and perhaps even plastic. However, you may not have heard that the newest trend in recycling is (drumroll) - t-shirts! Yes, Oxfam has existed for a very long time, essentially recycling clothes, so in this sense this is not anything new. What is new is that you can now return used clothes back to the shop where you bought them from and get some of your money back!

Leading this new revolution is the Norwegian sportswear company Stormberg. The vision behind the idea of getting back a "deposit" upon returning your used clothes (called Panteordning in Norwegian), is of course to reduce waste. On their website, Stormberg explains that these used garments often end up in East Europe, where they start a "new life". This is no doubt very exciting for your old t-shirt - definitely more interesting than sitting in your drawer day in an day out, never seeing the daylight (oh, the cruelty!).

In Scandinavia, a similar Panteordning arrangement already exists for plastic and glass bottles. In your local grocer you pay a deposit for them (10-25p) upon purchase and when you return them empty, a neat machine in the wall gives you this back. This is of course a very humanistic set-up, since collecting empty coke bottles thrown away by lazy spoilt rich kids gives scandi-hobos some purpose to their otherwise empty lives (no pun intended), as well as providing them cash for a daily meal. Brilliant! Brits - I suggest you follow lead.

Mind you, the deposit you get returned for Stormberg's clothes is not a huge amount of money - this deposit is usually around 10% of the value of the piece. Needless to say, this trend will probably never catch onto Primark, where a t-shirt costs around £2!

My mother recently got me one of these recyclable Stormberg-t-shirts. It was bright pink, the colour that particularly attracts bees and wasps, with a yellow text written across the chest: "Pink Different!". I wasn't quite sure where she was going with this but I let out a muffled "thaaannnkkksss...?" just to be safe. Then she went on to explain how it was made of bamboo, rather than cotton - not that I could tell the difference! Apparently, this is another way in which Stormberg is doing their bit for the climate. Bamboo garments are 100% degradable, and their production contributes far less to CO2-emissions, compared to cotton. So far it is considerably more expensive to make clothes out of bamboo compared to cotton (Primark is good testimony to this), which is why this trend is not likely to catch on globally anytime soon. Mind you, it does tick the ever-so-trendy I-do-my-bit-for-the-planet-box, so maybe this will outweigh its high cost. So far, bamboo is particularly popular as a material for sportswear, as well as clothing for the vertically challenged.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the deposit for my t-shirt is 20kr or £2 (see image). I couldn't promise my mother that I'd ever wear it in public - although this would be setting a good example! I think for now I'll keep it safe just in case one day I'm short for bus change.