Benefits of donating clothes to recycling banks

We’ve all been given a bit of an environment wake-up call of late and the impact on climate change isn’t going away any time soon. It’s a hot topic how the world is warming up and it is a real and direct threat to the survival of our planet and all beings living on it.

We all need to be making more of an effort to recycle our clothing; fast fashion isn’t winning any prizes for sustainability and we need to think longer term about the life cycle of our clothing. The benefits of donating clothes to recycling banks comes with many environmental benefits:

• Recycling clothing reduces landfill
• Recycling clothing conserves energy
• Recycling clothing reduces your carbon footprint
• Recycling clothing benefits people in in the UK and developing countries
• You can raise money for your own good causes by installing a FREE recycled clothing bin

According to report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, worldwide textile production produces 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year; that exceeds all international flights and shipping.

Did you know that it takes 2,650 litres of water to produce one cotton T-shirt? One third of the world’s fresh-water resources are used up just by making new clothing. We are relying heavier on synthetics and man-made materials like polyester and these are escalating the environmental impacts of fast fashion. How? Here’s how: the use of fossil fuels required to make polymer results in three times the carbon dioxide emissions than that of cotton.

One bit of good news is that us Brits send 700,000 tonnes of clothing to recycling centres, textile banks, clothes collections and to charity each year and that’s enough to fill 459 Olympic-size swimming pools!

Donating clothes makes a difference

Simply by donating 1kg of used clothing and popping it into a recycled clothes bank rather than letting it go into landfill could make the following reductions:

• 6kg of Co2 emissions less
• 6,000L of water consumption less
• 3 kg of fertilizers less
• 2kg of pesticides less

Here at Recycled Clothing Banks, we install FREE branded textile recycling bins in high footfall areas so that local communities can donate pre-loved clothes, shoes and household textiles as a way to generate additional funds for local community projects or charitable causes. We pay you a cash lump sum of £400 for every tonne of textiles we collect and are able to reuse – that’s a huge 40p per kilo! It’s a quick and easy way to earn much-needed money for your fundraising projects. We are currently working with village halls, scouts/girl guides, local authorities and private and public sector businesses to generate funds as well as create awareness around the benefits of donating clothes to recycling banks.