Unwanted clothing and textiles

Are you wondering what you can do with your old clothes and textiles?

Don't put them in the rubbish bin! We have a number of environmentally friendly suggestions for what you can do with your unwanted textiles ...

It is estimated that 12% of landfill sites consist of discarded textiles, and these can present a number of problems. For example, synthetic (man made fibres) products do not decompose so they will stay in the ground intact. Woollen garments do decompose, but during the decomposition process, they produce methane - a gas which contributes to global warming and climate change.

Therefore it is important that we choose to recycle textiles wherever and whenever possible.

Textiles are a source of 'unharnessed' energy and when they are recycled or reused they positively benefit both the environment and social environment. Recycled textiles provide an affordable source of clothing to disadvantaged people in the developing world and emerging countries in Eastern Europe.

Bag2School and Bag2TheFuture: Donate your textiles for someone else to wear and use

These schemes encourage people to donate their unwanted textiles so that they can be re-used by someone else. These schemes can act as a vital source of fundraising and are often very successful when run in conjunction with events such as Eco Week and Recycle Week.

The Bag2School scheme only serves schools, whereas sister company Bag2TheFuture is a scheme which works with companies, faith groups, charities, community organisations, housing associations and sports clubs, i.e. everything outside of the education sphere.

Payment is in accordance to the weight of your collected textiles: currently £500 per tonne/50p per kg. If you prefer, your cheque can be made payable to any charity or organisation of your choice. Collection bags and the collection of the textiles are both free of charge.

What can go in the donation bags?

• adults and children's clothing
• bedding and curtains
• shoes (paired and tied together)
• soft toys
• belts
• handbags

Please note that dirty or wet textiles cannot be accepted.

For more information, please go to the Bag2thefuture website or Bag2school website.

You can take your textiles and shoes to one of our charity owned textile banks which are widely dispersed throughout Spelthorne.

Textile banks accept all clothing, paired shoes, curtains and bed linen.
Shoe banks accept paired shoes only

Textiles placed in either bank should be in good condition, and dirty or wet textiles will not be accepted. Items should be put into the banks in small carrier bags. Please do not try and put full dustbin bags into the chute, as it will jam the bank chute.

The shoes from our shoe only banks are collected by the European Recycling Company Ltd, where the majority are then shipped to developing countries and redistributed. The remainder are recycled and processed to extract raw material to use to make new products.

Textiles collected from the mixed textiles banks are collected by charities SCOPE and TRAID. Good quality clothing is sent to developing countries, whereas the more worn textiles are sold and recycled and reprocessed into new products. The payments from this is used to fund charities' other projects

There are a number of textile banks across Spelthorne, to find your nearest recycling bank please visit out Recycling Bank Sites page.

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