UNIQLO Co., a leading Japanese retail clothing chain, announced on February 20, 2007 that it will regularly collect and recycle all its products. The company considers the reuse of its products to be one of its most important social responsibilities, and has thus started a nationwide recycling program. In March and September, when people tend to change clothes for the new season, UNIQLO will collect its used products directly from customers at all of its stores (approximately 700 nationwide).
UNIQLO started a recycling program to collect its fleece wear for conversion into fuel for power generation in 2001. The company decided to expand the program to collect all of its products after a trial in September 2006 (details are available on the following site: http://www.japanfs.org/db/1552-e).
During this one month trial, about 140,000 items were collected. About 92 percent of the collected materials were suitable for additional use and were donated to refugee camps in Thailand and Nepal, while about six percent was converted into fuel for power generation and about two percent was recycled as raw materials for insulation, work gloves and other products.
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