“On the forehead – Where do our clothes end? » with Hugo Clément this Sunday, December 19 on France 5

Sunday December 19 at 8:55 p.m., France 5 will broadcast a new issue of “Sur le Front” devoted to recycling our clothes. Journalist Hugo Clément has traced the second-hand clothing industry and reveals the reality of a global business that contributes to the massive pollution of rivers and oceans.

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Department stores now offer us to bring back our used clothes in exchange for discount coupons. What is behind this practice? Sur le Front has revived the second-hand clothing industry. As for the clothes deposited in the collection bins, they are rarely offered to families in difficulty, they actually feed a globalized business.

Editorial by Hugo Clément – ​​Journalist

I was surprised recently to receive so many emails from fashion brands offering to take back my old clothes. It's true that we buy 10 kilos of clothes a year – that's the average for the French – and that we all have clothes sleeping at the bottom of our closets. We asked the brands what became of these collected clothes. Impossible to have a clear answer: they did not open their sorting centers to us. We then decided to hide GPS beacons in clothes and I discovered the hidden side of the second-hand sector. While we think we are doing a good deed by donating our old clothes, a large part of these items are in fact resold abroad. Most of them do not help French families in difficulty, but are exported to poor countries where they are marketed. And because we send too many very poor quality items, many end up their long journey in open landfills and… in the oceans. We all know that fashion is an extremely polluting industry; it emits twice as much CO2 as all global air transport. But I had no idea that even in their second life, our clothes continue to damage ecosystems by polluting African rivers and beaches. At the same time, I realized that the fashion world is changing. Far from the greenwashing of fast-fashion brands, new designers are campaigning for really cleaner clothes. They want to produce less and better. In the Tarn, a French entrepreneur even invented a revolutionary machine. She can turn any old garment into yarn to make new pieces. Above all, I discovered that we produce raw materials in our country. We are indeed the world's leading flax producers. Thanks to it and other local and vegetable materials, we can dress while reducing our impact on the environment. We followed an incredible entrepreneur who is fighting to relocate this entire industry.

How to Deal with a Defiant Child (And Reduce Future Defiance!) https://t.co/z38nBIr0T7

— Julie{FabWorkingMom} at Home Wed Aug 19 14:10:03 +0000 2020

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The exceptional sequences

Clothes donated to the Red Cross are resold to businesses You put your clothes in a Red Cross-stamped dumpster knowing that they will be donated to a family in need near you. Unfortunately, this is very rarely the case. Most of these deposits are resold on markets… in Africa. But those of too poor quality are thrown away and end up polluting the beaches and the oceans. H&M collects our old clothes for vouchers and sends them... abroad let's discover that the clothes dropped off at H&M in exchange for discount vouchers actually end up in Europe's largest clothing sorting centre, near Berlin. Far from the promise of ethical approach of the cheap ready-to-wear giant. Immersion in one of the largest used clothing sorting centersExceptional filming in this industrial world. Our old clothes are sorted before being exported. This gigantic center in Belgium receives 320 tonnes each week from France and all of Europe. The revolutionary French invention which makes it possible to recycle the fibers of our old clothesIn the depths of the Tarn, a Frenchman has developed a unique machine in the world which makes it possible to recover the fibers of any garment to remake yarn. It already supplies several brands in France and the United States. Thanks to this process, our clothes really get a second life. EXCLUSIVE: In Bangladesh, brand new sewage treatment plants never usedThe rivers of Bangladesh are polluted by the dyes used to manufacture the clothes worn in the developed countries. Yet this disaster could be avoided because treatment plants have been installed near textile factories. But they are not in service because companies do not want to see their cost of production increase. To remain the most competitive, they continue to pollute. France: first flax producer in the world The flax produced in Normandy is sent to Asia to be woven and returns to France in the form of reels of yarn. To put an end to this nonsense, a man decided to relocate this industry. He proposed to retired textile employees to restart machines that had fallen into disuse.

The teaser

“On the forehead – Where do our clothes end? This Sunday, December 19 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5. To see and review on france.tv.