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H&M, one of the most eco-conscious fashion stores out there, has been battling against just that since 2013, and is hoping to enlist the help if its customers with a powerful new video. Entitled Bring it on, a short film shows what happens to the garments you recycle, from being turned into new fabrics for new clothes to being used as cleaning clothes. In doing this, it hopes to collect 25,000 tonnes of unwanted clothes per year by 2020. 

H&M's "Bring It On" campaign encourages customers to recycle unwanted clothing at local stores, with Londoners getting a gift voucher worth about $6.25 in exchange. The company aims to collect more than 27,500 tons of used clothing and donate the funds from the garments toward textile recycling and human rights organizations.

The governments of the East African Community hoping to ban imports of secondhand clothes. The logic is that by stopping the trade of used garments, the apparel industry will be revitalized, create jobs and exports, and bolster their economies. What impact would this ban have on the donating Western countries? If we could no longer offload our unwanted discarded clothing onto the poor, what would we do with those clothes?

H&M is running a series of print ads in British newspapers to promote its "Conscious" line of eco-friendly clothing, and to tout a clothing-collection service that rewards shoppers with a £5 discount voucher for each bag of used clothes they drop off at a branch of H&M. "We want to inspire people to make a difference and engage with our customers to do things that are more sustainable," says Linda Maggs, H&M's sustainability manager.

The clothing company will now take your old clothes back and give you store credit. But they won't throw them away-they'll be fixed up and then resold.

Turn off your air conditioner and stay cool in your shirt instead. That's the idea behind a new plastic-wrap-like material that Stanford University scientists say could be made into "cool" clothing, the use of which could slash emissions and energy consumption in buildings. If woven into fabric, the wearable cloth could keep humans cool on the hottest of days, eliminating the need to adjust the thermostat or crank up a fan. That could make a dent on a major source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), which represents more than a third of the global clothing and footwear market, is considering a Quick Response (QR) code system that will allow consumers to scan clothing labels at the point of purchase using smartphones.

The supermarket giant formally has joined Greenpeace's DETOX campaign, pledging to deliver "toxic-free" clothing under its own-brand range F&F and release a full list of suppliers in its clothing supply chain.

Technology is being developed to reduce water use in dyeing but the use and abuse of water to dye clothing continues

Disney, Burberry, Adidas and other major brands tested positive for hazardous chemicals in their children's clothes and shoes, according to a Greenpeace investigation.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has something to say about what you wear. While not a fashion arbiter and unable to advise on attire for family gatherings, the FTC oversees what appears on the labels inside your clothes.

The Fashion Footprint app can scan clothing tags and provide ratings information on everything from factory safety to worker health. Fashion Footprint lets shoppers connect directly with the makers of clothes through an interactive, audio-visual experience, and learn how their purchase decisions affect the lives of people around the world.

The British retailer Tesco announced a commitment to immediately start removing hazardous chemicals from the supply chain of its F&F clothing and footwear label. Tesco recently signed onto the Greenpeace Detox Campaign, agreeing to eliminate chemicals such as phthalates, heavy metals, and chlorinated solvents by 2020. The retailer joins 80 other brands and suppliers that have agreed to the campaign since it began in 2011.

H&M, the second-largest clothing retailer in the world, is working with German textile recycler SOEX Group on a system where previously used fibers would make up the majority of the material they use in clothing manufacturing. H&M's head of sustainability, Anna Gedda, says the company has collected 34,000 pounds of waste since the program began.

A few basic (and often profitable) changes in a factory's manufacturing process can go a long way in cutting down pollution. That's the takeaway from Clean by Design, a new alliance between NRDC, major clothing brands-including Target, Levi's, Gap, and H&M-and Chinese textile manufacturing experts.

Finally, the fashion industry realizes we cannot continue this trend in a world where the rising population will have to devote more land to food - or even energy. We cannot continue to grow cotton like mad, nor can we endlessly spin fossil fuels into polyester or other synthetic fabrics. The road toward more sustainable fibers will be a long one with plenty of failures and misses, but it is one we need to take. That is, at least, absent a total rethink of how many clothes we really need in our closets - a discussion the large global clothing chains want to avoid.

There's only so far that community or family hand-me-downs can go to address the booming issue of textile waste, so I:Collect (aka I:CO) created a global collection network to keep discarded clothing and shoes out of landfills.

We buy-and throw out-more clothes than ever. It's time for new innovation to lower the footprint of our clothing.

It's back-to-school time, which means the advertisements are everywhere: Buy! Buy! Buy! Pencils and gadgets. Backpacks and sneakers. And, yes, heaps and piles of brand-new clothes. But this year, those ads are running up against another powerful message, resounding from such big brands as Eileen Fisher and Patagonia, along with a growing cadre of smaller thrift and resale shops: Let's make do, reuse, recycle.

This city known for its Hollywood glamour is set to become the latest to say fur doesn't fly. Without dissent, Los Angeles put itself on track to become the largest U.S. city to ban the sale of fur clothing and accessories after a unanimous vote of the city council Tuesday.

In an effort to dye its clothes without using toxic chemicals, the green-minded apparel company is making its new Clean Color Collection with natural dyes sourced from 96 percent renewable resources.