After sustainability-led initiatives such as garment recycling and their most recent biodegradable line of baby clothes, global retailer H&M has now announced a programme that gives us the recycled button. Going forward, all H&M Group products such as shirts, blouses, skirts, among others, that are produced in India, will have these particular buttons partly crafted from post-consumer recycled plastic collected by waste pickers in Bengaluru.
This launch is part of H&M Foundation’s four-year initiative, Saamuhika Shakti (that supports Bengaluru’s informal waste pickers), which has partnered with the likes of social enterprise Hasiru Dala Innovations and WaterAid India, among others. Stockholm-based Maria Bystedt, Strategy Lead, H&M Foundation, says that Saamuhika Shakti has reached around 20,000 waste pickers and their family members (as of March 2022) and reached 2.6 million people from the general population of Bengaluru as part of the perception change campaign around waste pickers.
