Gloucestershire Recycles is encouraging people to reduce the amount of clothes wasted by reusing them.
Gloucestershire Recycles is a partnership of Gloucestershire County Council and the six district councils and together they have launched a new clothing campaign this September called ‘Wear Not Waste’.
The campaign aims to reduce clothing waste and tackle the carbon emissions created by the fashion industry. Globally, the industry creates 10% of the world’s carbon emissions and around 711,000 tonnes
of clothing and textiles are discarded each year in the UK, rather than being reused, donated, or recycled.
On average, everyone in the UK throws away 35 items of unwanted clothing and textiles every year.
One way to tackle this is reuse pre-loved clothes. Two-thirds of people in the UK wear pre-loved clothing and the vintage market is booming nationally. By 2030 sales in the pre-loved clothing market are predicted to overtake fast fashion.
As part of the campaign, the Gloucestershire Recycles partnership have made a clothing swap kit available to borrow for anyone who wants to host a clothes swap. The kit contains rails, hangers, signs and mirrors to make holding a pop-up clothes swap event easy.
The kits can be ordered easily and collected from Gloucester. Contact Waste@gloucestershire.gov.uk to find out more.
There is also a handy information pack (on the website below) for teachers to help educate young people on the topic of fast fashion.
Gloucestershire Recycles is also running a giveaway to win two £50 charity shop gift cards to help two lucky residents shop second hand. To enter, there is a short questionnaire about second hand shopping featured on the website.
Cllr. David Gray, cabinet member for environment and planning said “It’s great that we’re supporting our communities in the county to proactively swap clothing rather than going straight to buying new. This is a great way to save money and tackle climate change and I hope as many people as possible take part.”
To find out more go to gloucestershirerecycles.com/fashion