H&M

I read a disturbing article in the New York Times about clothing companies discarding unworn clothes.

At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door. The man and woman were there to salvage what had not been destroyed.
A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart — hoodies and T-shirts and pants — were discovered in trash bags the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart that has space on the block.
Each piece of clothing had holes punched through it by a machine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/nyregion/06about.ht

Risa Alyson Strauss describes the Jewish concept of waste in an article entitled Waste Minimization, Bal Tashchit and Beyond.

The Jewish law of Bal Tashchit, which prohibits us from being wasteful or unnecessarily destructive, is rooted in the Biblical commandment to not destroy fruit-bearing trees while laying siege to a city:

יט כִּי-תָצוּר אֶל-עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ
לְתָפְשָׂהּ, לֹא-תַשְׁחִית אֶת-עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו
גַּרְזֶן--כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל, וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת: כִּי
הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה, לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר.
19 When, in your war against a city, you have
to besiege it a long time in order to capture it,
you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax
against them. You may eat of them, but you
must not cut them down. Are the trees of the
field human to withdraw before you into the
besieged city? Dvarim (Deuteronomy) 20:19

The Talmudic rabbis understood these verses as a prohibition against any type of willful destruction and expanded this injunction into the general law of Bal Tashchit, which disallows wasteful or destructive behaviour. We are instructed by the rabbis to not use more than what we need, to not needlessly destroy anything, to not use something of greater value when something of lesser value will suffice, and to not use something in a way that it was not meant to be used (which would increase the likelihood of it being broken or destroyed).
....
In Hilkhot Melakhim, Maimonidies wrote:
Whenever someone destroys a useful artifact, or rips clothing, demolishes a building, plugs up a spring, or senselessly destroys food, it violates the negative mitzvah of Bal Tashchit. Such actions are disgraceful. (6:10)
Read more: http://more.masortiworld.org/environment/space/community/Waste_Minimization_Bal_Tashchit_and_Beyond.pdf