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M&S Shwopping Revolution

Passing by Marks & Spencer this week in East London, you might be surprised to find a multicoloured building, it’s facade flapping in the wind.  Is it laundry? Is it conceptual art? Is some kind of post-pop yard sale?  In fact, the building has been covered top to bottom in unwanted apparel, as part of a campaign titled Shwopping, bringing attention to recycling and reusing clothing.  

Every day in the UK, approximately 10,000 pieces of clothing go into a landfill every 5 minutes!  That’s just under 3 millions pieces of clothing a day.  The Marks & Spencer facade helps us all to visualize exactly 5 minutes of waste.

The project is not all just artsy awareness - the Shwopping project has placed over 1200 drop boxes at M & S stores all around the UK.  The contents of these boxes will be donated to Oxfam, an international organisation that resells, re-uses or recycles used clothing. The money raised will go to help people living in poverty.  The density and diversity of the city can allow us to find resources in what might seem, at first glance, to be waste.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

Join the Shwopping Revolution here or simply bring one piece of clothing to donate every time you buy a new one.

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The Guardian: “M&S launches ‘shwopping’ scheme”

Design Boom: “Clothes covered building - marks & spencr shwopping campaign”