Myer is launching donation stations in its Melbourne, Eastland and Fountain Gate stores.
The donation stations are part of its partnership with Moving The Needle, a Salvation Army Australia initiative to reduce waste in the fashion industry.
According to the Salvation Army website, all donated items are individually sorted, evaluated, and placed either in store or into one of its recycling streams.
“Once donations are received by a store, they are moved to a sorting room where the store team will separate them into clothing categories or season.
“Each category will be carefully sorted by a team member who will review each item and decide, for example, which pieces of clothing are in saleable condition (clean and undamaged), and which will need to be repurposed.”
“Clothes that have been processed for sale are then priced based on their condition, quality, and original retail value before being displayed on the shop floor for them to find a new owner.”
This move forms part of Myer’s commitment to implementing initiatives that reduce packaging, minimise waste from landfill, promote recycling, and support circular economy schemes. This includes a focus on increasing Myer's recycling diversion rate of 63.6% to minimise landfill.
According to its online report into sustainability, Myer is continuing to improve its packaging standards, which includes a paper reduction project in stores, substituting 70% of soft home packaging to natural fibres, and phasing out plastic shopping bags.
Regarding the latter, the online report states that Myer has decreased plastic bag consumption in stores, with the total number of units ordered down 4.96 million in FY20.
The launch of its donation stations joins over 550 textile drop-off points throughout Moving The Needle’s network.
The initiative will run until October 9.