UPDATE: September 20, 2011 — It worked!! Clickers and Stickers Make H&M Detox

There’s a skeleton in H&M’s closet. The fast-fashion retailer sells clothes made with chemicals which cause hazardous water pollution around the world, and the only way to stop this water pollution is to come clean and stop using such chemicals for good. As one of the largest clothing groups in the world, an H&M committed to a toxic-free future would set the trend for the rest of the fashion industry to follow.

H&M is the largest clothing company featured in our Dirty Laundry and Dirty Laundry 2 reports, which detail the science behind the Detox campaign.

Greenpeace research confirms that H&M has links to factories discharging a range of hazardous chemicals into China’s rivers, and that clothing — including kids clothing — sold by H&M, contain nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) that break down into the toxic nonylphenol (NP). These chemicals are a cause for serious concern, as they are known hormone disruptors and can be hazardous even at very low levels.

Nonylphenol and other chemicals found in our sampling are man-made substances that can persist in the environment and can have potentially devastating effects as they accumulate up the food chain.