Salvation Army Clothing Banks
The Salvation Army Clothing
Collection Scheme (SATCoL) was first established in 1991 since when
it has grown into the UK’s leading recycling scheme. It operates a
fleet of vehicles around the country to collect unwanted quality
clothes and shoes from clothing banks, door to door collections,
schools and colleges. SATCoL is the UK’s leading textile and
clothes recycling company, operating more than 5000 clothing banks
and over 120 charity shops around the country.
Textiles being the UK’s fastest growing waste stream we are
passionate about diverting as many items from landfill as possible
by encouraging the public to recycle their unwanted clothing. Of
the items donated to us, 99% are reused or recycled, which means
less than 1% is land filled. We are proud of this figure but
continue to work towards zero landfill.
Approximately 3,000 tonnes of donations a month are processed
and 2 tonnes a month is land filled. We are presently working with
our waste contractor to further process our non-textile items to
minimise landfill and work towards zero waste.
Donated items are transported to a central facility in
Northamptonshire where soiled and non-textile items are removed.
After local and/or national needs identified by The Salvation Army
are satisfied and Salvation Army Trading Company Limited charity
shops’ requirements are met, the remainder is exported, primarily
to countries in Eastern Europe. Records reveal that 99% of exported
items are either reused or recycled with up to 80% re-worn
Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd contracts Kettering Textiles
Ltd to carry out the work of collecting donated clothing on its
behalf. Items donated will be sold for re-use and recycling. Of the
net profits, two thirds are retained by Salvation Army Trading
Company Ltd and one third is passed to Kettering Textiles Ltd This
means that at current market values Salvation Army Trading Company
Ltd will receive £260* per tonne of donated clothing.
*correct as of February
2011
The Operation is compliant and certified with:
- Environmental Management System ISO 14001 : 2004
- Quality Management System ISO 9001; 2008.
- Occupational Health and Safety Management System
OHS18001:2007
Profit that SATCoL receives from the sale of donated clothing is
gift-aided to The Salvation Army, and we are proud to have donated
£16.2 million to the charity in the past three years alone
The Salvation Army, is
one of the largest non governmental provider of social and welfare
community work throughout the UK. This work includes a network of
57 homeless shelters, programmes that support children, young
people and families, residential centres for older people, a family
tracing service, help for those suffering from addictions and much,
much more.
Facts and Figures
- DEFRA estimates that the UK public buys 2,066,000 tonnes of new
clothes (30- 34 Billion pounds worth) and just 498,000 tonnes is
recycled – that’s just 24%
- 52% or 1,081,000, of unwanted clothes end up in
landfill. This means that on average every person in the UK
buys £600 of clothes each year and discards £400
- It takes 176 gallons of water to make just one T-shirt!
- If everyone in the UK recycled one garment each year, it would
save an average of 371 million gallons of water; or the contents of
an average reservoir in the UK
- 95% of clothes purchased in UK are imported
- It takes 10 times more energy to make one tonne of textiles
than one tonne of glass
- C02 savings from textile recycling is second only to aluminium
– reusing clothes conveys a greater benefit to the
environment.
Contact
Dover District Council Wasteline:
01304 872428
E-mail: waste@dover.gov.uk
