With COP26 up and running it’s a perfect opportunity to tell you about the hard work we put in to ensure nothing donated to our charity shops goes to waste. Head of Retail Sue Blair reveals the secrets…
Have you ever wondered what happens to items than can’t be sold in your local Sense Scotland shop? You’d be amazed what happens to your preloved ‘stuff’ that can’t be sold on.
Whether it’s clothes that are too damaged to warrant a price tag, or items which seem beyond repair, we’ll have a use for them.
When you drop your donations off at our shops we’ll sort through them and get the saleable items on the rails and shelves. We try and replace missing buttons or repair broken zips. Good quality buttons are clipped off garments and carded and either used again or carded and sold over the counter.
Ripped or damaged clothes which can’t be repaired go to rag merchants for grading and redistributing to other countries. And clothing and material that’s not able to be recycled abroad is shredded and turned into the cloths that mechanics use to clean the engine grease off their hands. Every piece of cloth that can be is used. So, a vest top with a hole in it today, could be in the hand of a mechanic next week!
It’s the same with footwear. Shoes which we can’t sell will be paired and sent abroad. Even single shoes are not wasted – the clever shoemakers can match shoes together and adjust so that they look very similar.
As for broken jewellery, chandelier droplets and pendants…these items are perfect for upcycling. They’re given a new lease of life by Irene in our Peebles shop. She turns them into wind chimes and light catchers to hang in your window. Irene is super crafty and has also been making gnomes and greeting cards all from recycled card, material and odd bits of wool.
Electrical goods are all PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) tested by either our fully qualified staff in house or our volunteers – many of whom are former electricians. We always make sure these are safe and compliant with legislation. This makes a huge difference to our sales and saves on what has to be sent to landfill.
Books and media, including scratched and broken CDs, are sent to our charity partner World of Books who sell on or pulp to reuse.
From time to time we come across some vintage, niche or collectable items and sell these online through another one of our charity partners, Izador.
Items which can be recycled – such as old batteries, paper, cardboard and soft plastics – are all recycled as much as possible depending on each council’s collection policies.
So, the next time you pass your local Sense Scotland charity shop, think of the staff and volunteers beavering away behind the scenes, making their own contribution to reducing our carbon footprint.
Better still, go into the shop, and find out more about volunteering to help us to recycle even more, we’d love to have you on board.