A major concert tour like Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” can sell out stadiums. They generate billions in revenue. But they also end with literal tons of unpurchased merchandise. It's often called “merch” in music biz slang. Such items are often destroyed or dumped in landfills. Eilish aims to change that. Before each of her shows, Eilish explains that the merch at her concerts is made sustainably. It is made using renewable dyes and recycling or upcycling materials when possible. She has also worked with her mother, Maggie Baird. The two of them pushed Bravado, the company that makes the merch, to find clever ways to cut down on the impact of unpurchased clothes. “We are drowning in clothes on this planet, much of which is in landfills, much of which is shipped to other countries to pollute their waters and their land,” Baird told Fast Company. “I think we have to be extremely thoughtful about what merch gets put out in the world — why does it exist, how is it made, and what happens to it in its second life?” Eilish and Baird partnered with Spanish company Hallotex to put 400,000 unbought t-shirts to use. They’ll be shipped to a facility in Morocco. There, they will be turned back into cotton yarn. That yarn will then be used to spin 280,000 new shirts for Eilish’s European tour later this year. The unused threads will be turned into insulation for houses. The process also saves water. To grow the cotton and make one new t-shirt requires 2,700 liters of water. Hallotex estimates its recycling method will save 4.2 million liters of water on Eilish’s merch alone. Thought Question: If you could turn something old into something completely new and useful, what would you choose and what would you turn it into?
