Sweden Uses H&M's Unsold Clothes to Replace Coal and Generate Electricity

The Vasteras thermal power station, northwest of Stockholm in Sweden, is using H&M's discarded clothing to produce electricity as a substitute for coal. Owner Malarenergi has set a target of making the facility fossil fuel-free by 2020 by burning recyclable waste. l Renewable Energy Specialist, a profession that will create 24 million jobs by 2030 H&M's clothes are fuel material for the head of fuel supply at the Vasteras thermal power plant, Jens Neren. The plant belongs to the Malarenergi company and is 54 years old. "Our goal is to use only renewable and recycled fuels to generate electricity by 2020," he tells Bloomberg. Most of Sweden's electricity production uses emission-free, clean energy thanks to a system of hydro, nuclear and wind power plants. But a few localities still receive electricity from old thermal power plants. A Swedish power plant is fuelled, among other things, by the fashion giant's unsaleable and unwearable clothes. "H&M does not burn clothes that are safe to wear," H&M's communications manager told the media after it was discovered that the company and its products were a surprising alternative in terms of fuel. The pieces that arrive at the plant are those that contain hazardous substances or substances that damage the quality of the product, such as mould or chemicals that do not meet the company's standards. H&M removes - for quality and legal reasons - these parts from the marketing circuit. Once they are taken out of the marketing loop, they enter the alternative energy loop. Clothing is one of the fuels used at the plant in Vasteras, north of Stockholm. The plant aims to eliminate fossil fuels from its operations by 2020, and is beginning to replace them with used wood and rubbish as energy sources. Clothing, as one of the company's managers behind the plant explains, is just another burnable element, another source of energy with recycled fuels. In almost all of 2017, the plant burned 15 tonnes of H&M's clothes, a part of the 400,000 tonnes of rubbish and waste they have used to generate energy. Although the clothing pieces are a very small part of that total, they helped generate energy to power 150,000 households. The 400,000 tonnes of waste is also a much more sustainable alternative to the 650,000 tonnes of coal that the plant in question used per year when it was using coal. Sweden and Waste as an Energy Source Sweden is one of the countries that has set itself the goal of eliminating fossil fuels from energy production in the country. Its state systems no longer use systems that generate emissions, but this is not the case for municipal utilities, which still use oil and coal to heat homes and offices in the winter. The solution to this problem lies in converting these plants from burning these polluting materials to using biofuels and waste to keep them operational. This also solves the problem of urban waste management. Sweden, on the other hand, has a highly evolved culture when it comes to waste. The country has set itself the goal of achieving zero waste, i.e. they do not want to generate any waste at all. They are not there yet, but they are very close. 99% of the waste generated in Swedish households is recycled (in 1975 only 38% was recycled). Of all this waste, 2.3 million tonnes - equivalent to half of the waste generated by Swedish households - was used to generate energy and they imported 1.3 million tonnes from neighbouring countries to supplement their own 'waste production' and generate more energy. The rubbish, they explain on the country's official website, generates smoke emissions that are 99.9 per cent non-toxic and, in addition, the residue after burning can be recycled once again. Only 1% of what is left over after burning the rubbish is unusable. "The company only burns clothes that are not going to be used," explains Johanna Dahl, communications manager at H&M in Sweden. "It’s our legal obligation to ensure that garments that contain mould or do not comply with chemical restrictions are destroyed.