It takes a staggering eight billion cubic metres of water to produce all the new clothing bought in the UK every year.
According to Oxfam, producing a single cotton t-shirt requires 5,400 bottles of water and a pair of jeans needs 16,000 bottles of water – enough to meet the daily drinking needs of 4,750 people.
These statistics highlight the importance and urgency of transitioning from ‘fast fashion’ to a more sustainable model. This can include recycling textiles and widening the use of second-hand clothing.
Leukaemia & Myeloma Research UK (LMRUK) is passionate about promoting clothes recycling and encouraging people to buy second-hand instead of new.
Earlier this year, the blood cancer charity launched a clothing and textile recycling initiative to help reduce the amount of clothing sent to landfills and raise money to support local schools and charities.
The Donate Clothes 4 Sammy Project works closely with schools enabling teachers, pupils and families to donate pre-loved items from home, in return for a reward payment, which is calculated on the weight of each collection.
So far this year, the project has donated over £5,000 to support schools that have contributed to the clothing collection scheme.
Items collected by the participating schools are sorted and those in good condition are sold on the charity’s online shop and eBay store, with all proceeds going to the charity.
Over 10,000kg of donations have been collected through the Sammy Project since its launch, thanks to clothing bags and banks from schools and nurseries.
Within the next year, the Sammy Project is aiming to accumulate 100 tonnes of preloved clothes, by collecting no longer worn items from households, schools, nurseries, businesses and the project’s clothing banks, to generate an additional £60,000 in funds for the charity.
The Sammy Project said:
“We’ve had such a positive uptake from schools and businesses – there’s a real appetite to help reduce the amount of clothing being sent to landfill and lower the environmental impact from the fashion industry and to help raise additional funds for blood cancer research.
“We want to thank all our partner schools for their incredible donations and for helping to raise a significant amount of money to support the work of our charity, LMRUK to continue investing in vital new blood cancer research.”
The Sammy Project has recently partnered with Westfield Primary School in Runcorn, Cheshire who donated 401kg of clothing and is now hosting one of the initiatives clothing banks in their carpark.
Other significant donations include Devonshire Road Primary School in Bolton with 255kg of items and St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School in Penketh, Warrington with donations totalling 544kg.
Mrs Joanne Croughan, Teaching Assistant at St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School, said:
“Raising funds for our school through unwanted items is a great and sustainable way of continuing to provide the best environment and facilities for our pupils.
“From the teachers to the students, we’ve all enjoyed taking part in the clothing recycling scheme with the Sammy Project – it’s a fantastic way to raise funds for not only our school but also blood cancer research and supporting the environment by recycling in an ethical way.
“We now have a clothing recycling bank on our school site enabling us to continue our partnership with the Sammy Project.”
The Sammy Project is inviting small charities to be part of the initiative. If you’re a charity and passionate about helping to reduce the environmental impacts of fast fashion, then please get in touch with the Sammy Project to find out how to get involved and generate funds for your cause.
To find out more about the Donate Clothes 4 Sammy Project, visit: https://donateclothes4sammy.org/. For more information about LMRUK, visit: https://lmruk.org/.
The Oxfam research on the water cost of fast-fashion can be found here: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/the-water-cost-of-fast-fashion-a-crisis-of-climate-change-inequality-what-we-can-do-about-it/.