Recycle Week 2011

Recycling Home and Away is the theme of this year’s Recycle Week where everyone is encouraged to think about what can be recycled, how best to recycle it using whatever local facilities are available and to think about recycling not just a home but while out and about too.

There is also a big emphasis on items that can and should be re-used which is a focus for BCR Global all year round. We are in the business of collecting and sorting unwanted clothing, shoes and other textiles that still have life in them and sending them abroad to be re-sold to people who don’t have access to or can’t afford to buy new clothing.

This kind of sustainable recycling prevents an awful lot of waste whereby people might find it easier to bin their clothing so it ends up clogging a landfill site, taking centuries to break down and sometimes giving off unpleasant fumes.

By providing many avenues for recycling and reuse – clothing and shoe banks, toy banks and bra banks to name but a few, our aim is to make it easy for everyone to help us take as many serviceable textiles out of the waste stream as possible and make sure that good quality items are made perfect use of by someone who really needs them on the other side of the world.

Our dedication to recycling at home is close to obsessive as nothing but nothing goes to landfill from our depot. Everything is either reused, recycled into filling for mattresses and the like; while the rest is sent to the incinerator for conversion - Waste to Energy. It is not easy and not inexpensive to do this but we do it because we believe it is right.

Maxine Sault, MD, BCR Global Textiles

New Partnership with Meningitis Trust

I was so excited to meet and shake hands with HRH The Countess of Wessex, Patron of the Meningitis Trust when Lynne and I visited the charity as part of its 25th Anniversary celebrations.

It was a good way of cementing relations with them and talking about our latest innovation to combat bogus charity bag collections www.bcrmeningitistrust.co.uk. The news of donation bags being taken from doorsteps and fake charities collecting for their own pockets has really shaken up the public. Actual clothing donations are down by 20% and another charity said the practice was costing them £3million in lost donations.

The new website is our way of carrying the banner – donating your wearable clothing is still a great way to re-use recycle and donate. Let’s keep the message out there.