Shoes & Clothes: What Happens After
Every week, our Anglo Doorstep Collections operation collects approximately 500,000 items of clothing and shoes donations (100 tonnes) of which 95% are re-homed right here in the UK and abroad (Africa, Middle East and Ukraine). That is approximately 470,000 items of clothing and shoes every week. The 5% which is not re-wearable are turned into industrial rags called wipers. We do not let anything go to landfill.
Once all donations have been collected by our team they are returned to our nearest warehouse to carefully unload
Once our d have collected your generously donated clothes, they return to the nearest warehouse to carefully unload all of the donations collected that day. In the image below you can see clothes and shoes are packed into large 200kg botany bags, sealed, and prepared for transport.
Grading, Bailing and Distribution
All donated clothes undergo careful manual inspection and sorting into around 500 grades based on gender, age, season, style, and condition. This specialist process is labour-intensive.
Once graded, the clothes are compacted and sealed in bales to increase the weight of shipping containers, reducing transport costs. It’s worth noting that transporting a container with 30 tonnes of clothes costs the same as one with 15 tonnes, resulting in significant savings on both price and pollution.
In the distribution phase, markets order clothes tailored to their specific needs and desires. For example, Ukrainian markets predominantly request heavy winter clothing during the colder months, while African markets prefer lightweight summer attire. This custom ordering system ensures efficient resource allocation and minimises waste.
Environmental Impact
We want items to be rehomed for their original purpose and give them a new home. Your unwanted clothes do not need to go to landfill, we can gvie them a new home! The fast fashion industry is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, responsible for as much as 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions. To produce just 1kg of cotton would require around 10,000 litres of freshwater. Cotton accounts for around 21% of the clothes we wear in the UK. To find out more about this click here.
Every week we save the planet more than 300,000,000 litres of fresh water from re-homing your un-used clothing. To find out more about Fashion and Water consumption, read here.
That amount of fresh water would fill an Olympic sized swimming pools 120 times, each week!
Our collection and distribution process has been carefully built and managed by Anglo Recycling since 2012 to reduce inefficiency and waste. We are saving our planet significant amounts of fresh water by reducing the demand for new clothes by re-introducing re-wearable clothes back into markets around the world.
Anglo Doorstep Collections
You can help put your unwanted clothes, shoes and many other household items back into circulation for their original purpose by booking your doorstep collection today through Anglo Doorstep Collections. For more information about the service and partnered charities click our read more button.
Anglo Doorstep Collection is a part of Anglo Recycling Company, for any further information about our Doorstep Collection service click the button below.