School and Community Zone

Textile Recycling for Schools

Textile collections are a fantastic opportunity to get your pupils involved in a worthy environmental cause and raise funds for your school or local charity.

In addition to providing families in struggling communities or emerging countries with affordable clothing, textile recycling greatly helps our environment. Textiles are now the fastest growing sector in household waste. 75% of our unwanted clothing ends up going into Landfill, which equates to over 1 million tonnes per year in the UK alone! Our planet simply cannot sustain this level of waste. Landfill is the worst environmental option for such waste as the methane it produces is a potent greenhouse gas – 21 times more dangerous than CO2! Manmade fibres such as nylon and polyester do not decompose. Natural fibres such as wool do decompose, but in doing so they produce methane which has been proven to contribute to global warming. Recycling such items for re-use really does help our environment!

Can you help - Does your School have a Textile Bank yet?

(If you don´t have room for a Textile Bank, click here)

Please call or email us to discuss a textile bank at your school. If you have a suitable location i.e a car park, corner of the playground etc, we can arrange for a textile bank to be delivered. There is no charge for this service, we will service and collect the textiles from the bank routinely so you do not need to book. We will etablish a pattern of what your bank yeilds and collect as often as needed. If you find your bank is full you can call and request an additional collection. We will weigh all the textiles that come out of your bank and provide your school with a collection receipt. Then we will then send you a payment for every kg collected with a certificate for your school.

Getting a Textile Banks for your school. In 3 easy steps

Step one Call or email us and arrange for a Textile Bank to be delivered to your school.
(info@elmtreetextiles.uk or 01258 881111)

Step Two Encourage your students, parents, friends, and members of the local community to support the bank by donating their unwanted, clean dry clothes, bedlinen and soft toys.

Step Three We will arrange a regular convenient collection date. All the textiles in your bank will be weighed and we will make a payment directly into your school account based on this weight. We will email confirmation of this payment and your collection with a Certificate of Fundraising Achievement for your school noticeboard, to thank everyone for their effort and to let everyone know how successful they have been.

The banks are in Moss Green Colour, to be as unobtrusive as possible.
w: 1500mm x d:1500 mm x h:1800 mm
Each recycling unit can hold up to 400kg of textiles

School of the month

We will be monitoring the amount textiles obtained from the different schools and then we can reveal which school is recycling the most textiles each month!

The Benefits of Recycling!

Schools and Community groups are able to benefit from extra funds raised by textile recycling that can go towards new equipment, school trips or charity. All you have to do is donate your unwanted Clothes, Shoes, linen etc. We will send you a Certficate informing you of the amount you have raised! Your children can feel proud of their efforts to both help the environment and raise money.

If you would like to raise funds from recycling, but don't have room for a bank.

Three Easy Steps

Elm Tree Textiles specialises in good quality second-hand clothing. If you would like to arrange a collection, it is a very simple project.

Step one Arrange a suitable date with parents, students staff etc, then please call or email us to help organise the event.
(info@elmtreetextiles.uk 01258 881111 - Mark Gillard)

Step Two We will arrange for a collection to be made as near to the date you request, and you can specify a time if you need one. On the day of collection, all you have to do is make sure the bags are at the school, we will do the rest, you won’t even have to lift them onto the van, our drivers will do everything.

Step Three The bags (as a whole collection) are then weighed with a receipt being left with your school. We make a direct payment to a school bank account within 30 days, and email a Certificate of Fundraising Achievement to your school for your school noticeboard, to thank everyone for their effort and to let everyone know how successful they have been.

Just for your information

On average, a black bin bag can hold 10kg. Just think, if all the bags were filled as full as possible, at a recycling market price* of 15p per kg, 100 bags could raise you £200! Obviously, the more you put in the bags, the more money you will raise. Don’t worry if you only have a small school; why not involve the staff and even your local area in the fundraising scheme? In the past, we have had schools with only 20 pupils and staff collect over 1,500kg by encouraging the whole village to take part! We don’t charge anything for this service we collect the filled bags free of charge. This scheme really is so simple, and it gives your school the opportunity to raise vital funds.

(* Recycling Market Price subject to change - please ask what we are currently paying when requesting your bank or collection)

Suggested Letter for Parents

Appeal To All: Help raise funds for your school and protect our environment

Dear Parent or Guardian

Elm Tree Textiles is a business that specialises in Fundraising through Recycling. We collect and export good quality second-hand clothing to countries in Eastern Europe and Africa. We are working with your school to help it raise cash through your collection of unwanted clothing for us to export.

We need clean, good quality men's, ladies' and children's clothing as well as shoes, handbags and other household textiles. Please fill your own bag and return it to the school on the agreed day. One of our collectors will be at the school to pick up all the bags and weigh them.

All the clothes you provide will be exported for sale in local markets in Eastern Europe and Africa, within ten days of the collection being made.

We look forward to a successful collection. If you need more information please download it from our website www.elmtreetextiles.uk.
Remember, the more you collect, the more cash your school will receive.

Thank you for all your help.