Fast fashion might only be perceived as a modern day issue, yet for the past 30 years, Newlife, the Charity for Disabled Children, has been running a recycled clothing operation where surplus high street fashion is sold on to raise money for life-changing equipment to help thousands of vulnerable children across the UK. Not only does this enhance the life of these disadvantaged kids, but it also helps save unwanted clothing items from landfill. We caught up with CEO of the charity, Sheila Brown, to find out more.
We wanted to have a positive social impact and, for us, that’s about helping people and the planet. Instead of just using the normal fundraising route, I had a background in retail, while my husband has worked in environmental youth work, in an area where if you asked young people to be green, they thought you were talking about a colour. It was an uphill struggle for him in those days. I was looking to raise money, and he was trying to get young people to be greener, so together we came up with the idea to make use of unwanted clothing. We realised we could have a positive impact by combining the two. We asked retailers what they did with the stock they no longer needed – like returns or over-orders. Around 28 years ago, people had no idea that they should be doing something different with these items. We have three sons and two of them have completely different disabilities, so it comes from a personal place, too.
Our system is based on the three Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle. We work with major retailers and small independents in the UK and Europe. A clothing retailer might have a warehouse full of stock that they no longer need, and want these items gone as soon as possible because Christmas is coming. The product comes to us and is then evaluated to see how we can get the most use out of it. The vast majority of our stock is clothing, but we do have homewares as well. Items are assessed for safety, to see whether they can be reused in their current form – this is the best use of the energy that went into creating the product in the first place. Sometimes we have to redefine a product’s use. For example, we had a load of clip-in hair extensions. They came on a little metal bar and it turns out a lot of dog grooming parlours really love them because they don’t drag the dog’s coat, so they are a kinder way to hold the fur back. That’s one way we designate things for other uses. We try to be creative – we have an area in one of our stores called ‘upcycling’, so we put wood and fabrics in there, too.