Welcome to the first Wear to Care newsletter of 2010. I’m pleased to report that the market for textile recycling remains buoyant and there continues to be a keen demand for reusable quality fashion. However, this high demand is driving fierce and at times aggressive competition in the market. Although there are plenty of operators, like ourselves, whose aims are to divert clothes from landfill and raise funds for well loved charities there are, unfortunately, more and more unscrupulous and often illegal operators that threaten to tarnish the industry and the public’s perception of it. We are working hard to reduce the impact of these unsavoury activities and a large part of this is educating the public to know exactly which organisation they’re donating their clothes to when they see a bank in their local car park.

Another ongoing issue we face is that up to 3% of the items kindly donated to us are stolen each week. Although this is a relatively small amount it still represents money that we aren’t able to gift aid to The Salvation Army and public donations that don’t go where intended. We are working hard to reduce this figure by ensuring our operation is as secure as possible, and are in close contact with government departments to improve legislation which will tighten up on illegal practices within the industry.

Thankfully, despite the problems we and many other genuine operators continue to encounter, our collection levels are on a par with our previous best year and The Salvation Army has been delighted with the level of gift aid we have made. This is down to the generosity of the public and our partnerships with local authorities and other organisations that are as dedicated to increasing levels of textile recycling as we are.

Thank you for your continued support.

Paul Ozanne, National Recycling Co-ordinator
Paul.ozanne@satradingco.org

A Very Co-operative Partnership

As well as giving members of the public lots of opportunities to recycle their unwanted clothing via our network of over 3,800 clothing banks and more than 70 charity shops, we are also able to assist major organisations in recycling and reusing large volumes of surplus textiles. One example of this is our recent work with The Co-operative Clothing, which donated over 4,000 garments of unused corporate wear to SATCoL.

As well as diverting textiles from landfill, which is of huge benefit to the environment, the money raised from the Eastern European sale of The Co-operative Clothing’s generous donation will help to ensure The Salvation Army can continue to help those most in need throughout the UK and Ireland.

Mark Wilkinson, Managing Director of The Co-operative Clothing, said:  “Working with our colleagues in The Co-operative Retail Logistics, donating to The Salvation Army reinforces our determination to avoid landfill and contribute to a worthy cause. I would encourage any other textiles or clothing businesses to do likewise.”

Paul Ozanne pictured with Mark Wilkinson

Posting The Right Message

We are pleased to announce the availability of a suite of new posters designed to highlight the many different services available from SATCoL.

Addressing topics such as clothing banks, recycling, donating to charity, reuse and door-to-door collections, each poster has been designed with a different theme and may be used individually or as a collection to encourage public awareness of textile recycling.

The posters are each available in A4, A3 and A2 sizes, so whether you’re looking to brighten up a public reception area, include them within a wider recycling information pack or at an exhibition, or make them available to other organisations in your area such as schools, we would be pleased to provide you with print ready electronic files.

Please visit www.wear2bank.co.uk/local-authorities/posters to browse and download low resolution versions. High resolution, print ready versions may be ordered by emailing jeanette.mahoney@satradingco.org, stating which posters you require and the sizes you'd like.

Making An Exhibition Of Ourselves

SATCoL is looking forward to meeting many friends, both old and new, at two of the recycling industry’s key events in 2010.

Our first stop will be at Futuresource in London’s Excel centre from 15–17 June where you will find us at stand KA30, followed by RWM in the NEC, Birmingham, from 14–16 September at stand 850.

We are currently in the process of commissioning an exciting new stand ready for its debut at Futuresource in June. The stand will not only have a fresh new look, it will also allow us to communicate more effecitively with visitors. If you are planning on attending either of these events – which we thoroughly recommend! –  please do drop by and see us.

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh pictured at our stand at RWM in 2009

Trail Blazing

Occasionally we get requests for clothing donations that are a little out of the ordinary, such as the call we got from Blaze – a dance show taking place at Sadlers Wells’ Peacock Theatre from 11–28 March. The Blaze team were looking for some recycled clothing and materials that they could incorporate into their set design and costumes, so we obliged by lending them a tonne of textiles.

The show, which is a street dance extravaganza, features some of the world’s best DJs, B-Boys and street dancers (including finalists from the popular BBC show So You Think You Can Dance), mixing nightclub vibes with West End production values in a high-energy theatrical show of non-stop dance.

This partnership demonstrates just how many ways there are to reuse and recycle clothing to avoid it ending up in landfill. It’s always fun and rewarding for us to get involved in projects that are ‘off the beaten track’. The Blaze team has agreed to donate the textiles back to us at the end of the show’s run so we anticipate that the clothes will re-enter our normal system. To see our clothing in action visit www.sadlerswells.com/show/Blaze

 

Flintshire Banks On Charity Support

Flintshire County Council has recently increased the number of banks in its area from 15 to 20, offering local residents more opportunities to donate their unwanted clothing to a reputable organisation such as SATCoL. The council has had a long standing relationship with us stretching back over a decade and in this time textile recycling via SATCoL banks has increased to an impressive 165 tonnes per year – a figure that is set to increase thanks to the five new banks.

Working in conjunction with our press office, Flintshire County Council is using the installation of the new banks to get important messages across to the public via local media on the benefits of textile recycling and donating to operators with genuine charity connections.

“Whilst we are 100% committed to diverting as much textiles from landfill as possible, we also like to see genuine, reputable charity operators benefiting from the generosity of our residents” says Cllr. Nancy Mathews, Executive Member for Waste. “Flintshire County Council has an excellent relationship with Salvation Army Trading Company, which donates profits made from its Clothing Collection Scheme to The Salvation Army to help fund its social and community work throughout the UK. We currently have 15 Salvation Army clothing banks at various recycling sites and other locations in the area and we’re just about to install another five.”

If you have a particular message you would like to get across to the public about textile recycling in your area, our press office can help. Please contact sarah@absoluteprandmarketing.com for more information.

Thank You Once Again

As we previously reported in January, there was good news published by Defra at the end of last year: the latest statistics show that textile recycling across the industry has increased in the UK since the last comparable study, helping to divert more clothes away from landfill. New figures indicate that just under a quarter of textiles are now recycled.

In real terms, the number of tonnes of clothes entering landfill on average each year has been reduced from 1,165,000 to 1,081,000, which is no small achievement.

We’d like to say another thank you to everyone who has helped SATCoL contribute to this environmental success but there is still a long way to go until all suitable textiles are recycled or reused, rather than ending up as harmful landfill.

If you are interested in helping to encourage residents in your area to recycle even more textiles please do get in touch, as there are several ways in which we can help.

Perhaps you’d like to discuss installing more clothing banks in your area, or operating door-to-door collections? If so please contact Paul Ozanne on 0788 772 6410 or paul.ozanne@satradingco.org. Or maybe you’d like to create some publicity to inspire the local public to think of clothing and textiles as well as bottles and newspapers when doing their recycling? In this case our press office is able to help; contact sarah@absoluteprandmarketing.com for more information.
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