Date: Thursday 1st Oct
Time: 8:45 am - 9:00 am
Just a little reminder that it is the BAG 2 SCHOOL collection on Thursday. Please fill the blue bag that was in your child’s book bag last week. If you need any more bags please ask Antonia Roskill (Merlin’s mother in Class 1) or you can use black plastic bin bags. Please bring your recycling bags in on Thursday morning at drop off (not before as there is nowhere at school to store them). Please leave the bags outside the front door of school by 9am when they will be collected. Thank you so much for your support – we all love the opportunity for a good clear out too!
Below is some further helpful information about what can and can not be collected and some information about where the clothes and textiles go.
What we collect
WHAT CAN BE COLLECTED
The following ‘good quality’ items can be collected:
• Men’s, Ladies and Children’s clothing
• Paired shoes (tied together or elastic band around)
• Handbags
• Hats
• Bags
• Scarves and ties
• Jewellery
• Lingerie
• Belts
• Soft toys
What is not accepted:
• Duvets, bedding, blankets and household linen
• Pillows and cushions
• Carpets, rugs and mats (including bath, shower and toilet mats)
• Curtains
• Towels
• Soiled, painted, ripped or wet clothing
• School uniforms
• Corporate clothing and workwear
• Textile off cuts, yarns or threaded material
WHERE THE TEXTILES GO
All clothing collected by Bag2School is sold, either sorted or un-sorted, to importers and wholesalers in many countries of Eastern and Western Europe, Africa and Asia.
Regardless of whether clothes are given to charities, clothing banks, council collections or Bag2School this is where the goods are all sold. 80 % of discarded clothing goes for reuse as clothes and the other 20 % enters the recycling industry for bed manufacture, socks, blankets and the industrial wiper trade. The only alternative to this is for the goods to go to a landfill site.
As a nation we throw away about 1,500,000 tonnes a year of clothes of which the textile industry handles around 300,000 tonnes, there are, therefore, over 1,000,000 tonnes still going to landfill sites. Bag2School is a good way to dispose of unwanted clothing, raise money for school and provide a supply of affordable clothing. Bag2School is working with DEFRA on the Textile Roadmap Process for reuse and recycling and the newly formed RITE Group which is committed to sustainability and ethical production of textiles.
Since 2001 Bag2School has paid £20,000,000 to schools. 76.5% of the gross turnover in 2008 was paid to schools, 21% went on operating costs and 2.5% was profit.
Thank you,