Londoners urged to donate to charity shops

Londoners are being asked to take unwanted, but still serviceable, items down to their local Oxfam shop rather than throwing them out with the rest of their rubbish, in an effort to reduce the waste being sent to landfill.


Reuse may be top of the often-quoted waste hierarchy but is often overshadowed by the widespread promotion of recycling.

But with it rapidly becoming apparent that recycling alone will not be enough to meet national and local landfill targets, other avenues are being explored to cut waste.

Recycle for London, the City Hall funded waste-reduction campaign, has teamed up with Oxfam to promote reuse of materials, using its website and a text messaging service to tell Londoners where they can find their nearest shop.

Launching the partnership on Thursday, the organisations also invited the public to make good use of the bank holiday by rooting through their wardrobes, attics and sheds to clear out unwanted items, helping to spring clean the environment as well as their homes.

“With an extra day off of work, Londoners have every opportunity to spring-clean their house and pick out the items that they no longer use and want to donate to charity,” said Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London.

“I am pleased that the Recycle for London campaign is teaming up with such a prestigious charity as Oxfam, and together we want to encourage Londoners to drop-off unwanted items to Oxfam shops so that they can reuse as well as recycle.

“The updated Recycle for London website is a fantastic tool to help them to do this. In addition to this there is the feel-good factor of donating to charity and helping the Oxfam cause of fighting poverty, as well as being active in the local community and supporting your local store.”

Oxfam spokesperson, Rose Marsh said: “What you may no longer want could be someone else’s treasure. Oxfam shops are pleased to take good quality donations of clothes, books and bric-a-brac where we sell them and turn into valuable fund to help others.

“It is important for Londoners to remember that an unloved handbag or stack of old books could be resold for ten pounds which we can turn into a hundred school dinners for hungry children in Malawi.

“This partnership with Recycle for London gives us another opportunity to reach out to Londoners and remind them to think of recycling and donating items for reuse when they’re spring-cleaning this bank holiday weekend.”

Sam Bond

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