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Sustainability & Recycling

Fashion Giants Finally Face the Waste Aftermath

• By  Textile Excellence
• October 15, 2026

Adidas, H&M, Zara-owner Inditex and Bestseller are joining forces to tackle textile waste. The big test: can they turn producer responsibility into a workable business model?

Four fashion heavyweights are stepping into one of the industry's toughest challenges: what happens to clothes after consumers are done with them.

Adidas, H&M Group, Inditex and Bestseller have launched the Apparel Recovery Coalition (ARC) with Ghana-based nonprofit The Or Foundation and circularity organisation Circle Economy. Their mission is to strengthen reuse, repair, recycling and upcycling, while addressing the environmental burden of second-hand clothing dumped or exported to countries with limited waste-management infrastructure.

The initiative begins in Accra, Ghana, home to Kantamanto Market, where an estimated 25 million garments are recirculated every month. The market offers a real-world view of both circular fashion in action and the mounting challenges of managing unwanted textiles, including water and soil pollution.

But ARC aims to go beyond another sustainability pledge. Over two years, it plans to develop and test a business model based on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the principle that brands must take greater responsibility for products after consumers discard them.

The first demonstration project in Accra will build on existing local initiatives, with infrastructure improvements, environmental remediation and training. A second project is planned in another country receiving large volumes of second-hand clothing.

Crucially, the coalition says affected communities will have a voice alongside brands, recyclers, sorting businesses and policymakers. The participating companies will make voluntary financial contributions to support the projects.

The urgency is hard to ignore. Inditex used 705,554 tonnes of raw materials in its products, up from 678,596 tonnes in 2024. H&M reported producing 364,093 tonnes of products in 2025. Managing waste more effectively matters, but so does confronting the volumes entering the system.

The real breakthrough will be accountability, not another coalition announcement. ARC must demonstrate who pays, how waste is collected and processed, and whether its model can work at scale. Its findings could help shape producer-responsibility systems worldwide.

For now, the industry has a new test case. The question is whether fashion's biggest players will help pay for the afterlife of the products they sell.

The real breakthrough will be accountability, not another coalition announcement. ARC must demonstrate who pays, how waste is collected and processed, and whether its model can work at scale. Its findings could help shape producer-responsibility systems worldwide. For now, the industry has a new test case. The question is whether fashion's biggest players will help pay for the afterlife of the products they sell.