Bag It Up Ltd (BIU), one of the UK’s leading clothing and textile recycling companies, is celebrating its latest milestone of £7million raised for its partner charities, thanks to donations from the great British public.
Residents, businesses and community groups across the UK have been recycling their unwanted clothing, shoes and household linens with BIU’s partner charities for over a decade.
BIU’s partners are UK-based, regional charities, including air ambulances, hospices and sporting associations. Each of these life-saving or life-changing charities rely on the support and generosity of the public, local businesses and community groups in their respective localities, to remain operational.
BIU designs and manufactures their own clothing recycling banks, at their in-house fabrication unit. After numerous tried and tested designs, they now own the UK patent for their no-key, anti-theft bank mechanism, which has ensured all donations are safe and secure, whilst awaiting collection.
Currently with a network of circa 1,400 clothing recycling banks around the UK, and eleven charity partnerships, BIU is extremely proud of what they have achieved to date, particularly with the current market conditions.
Exchange rates, political instability, garment quality and new imports from Asia, are just a few reasons as to why the used textile industry has seen a massive down-turn in the UK and overseas.
“The value of used textiles has dropped dramatically over the last few years”, Louise Knapton, a Director at BIU explains.
“When the market suffers, so do our charities. It’s a balancing act to cover the costs of our recycling operations whilst ensuring our charities receive maximum funding through the resale of their donated goods. Such a significant milestone shows our commitment to our Charity Partners does not waiver, despite more challenging conditions”
Wendy Yarney, Charity Partnerships Manager at BIU for the past eight years, says, “It’s an amazing achievement. I’m honoured to have worked alongside such vital and well-supported charities, and we must thank all donors for clearing out their clobber for their local, worthy causes.
Paul Gowland, Director of Fundraising, Yorkshire Air Ambulance Charity:
“This is a phenomenal figure for BIU to have raised for their charity partners and to have received £2.3million of that ourselves over the last 11 years is truly amazing. We would like to say a huge thank you, not only to BIU, but to all our supporters who have donated their unwanted items to us and made such a massive difference.
Once again the generosity of Yorkshire families just takes our breath away. We have a brilliant relationship with BIU, our recycling partner, who gives us a percentage of all the recycled material we collect which adds up to around £250,000 a year!”
To find out where your nearest clothing recycling bank is, please visit http://biugroup.co.uk/banklocator/ or contact the Charity office on T: 01422 237900.
