Latest research by the UK’s leading clothing collection agency, Clothes Aid, reveals that as the average Brit has 129 items of clothing which is unwanted in their wardrobes at any one time, those 29 items (1) of clothing take up approximately 50cm of space in a closet, and they weigh roughly 7.5kg.
As a UK population of 65 million people (2), that’s an estimated 485,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing and equivalent to an incredible 20,200 miles of closet space. Staggeringly, that’s equivalent in weight to over 85,000 elephants, or more than 60,000 empty double decker buses or around 2,700 empty jumbo jets and is the same closet space as travelling three quarters of the way around the equator or from London – Sydney and back… all in clothing that we no longer wear.
In Scotland with a population of over 5 million people (3), there is an estimated 40,000 tonnes of unwanted clothes, the equivalent of over 7,000 African elephants or more than 5,000 empty double decker buses or around 220 empty jumbo jets. Added together that’s approximately 1,700 miles of space of unwanted clothes being taken up in Scottish people’s wardrobes, around the same distance as travelling from Edinburgh to New Delhi, India.
That’s a heck of a lot of unused clothes that are sitting idle in wardrobes which could be made good use of by being donated to charitable causes instead. In our busy homes where spare space
is increasingly at such a premium, it’s a heck of a lot of potential space freed up too.
So that’s why, this Recycle Week (12-18 September 2016), Clothes Aid is calling for people up and down the country to have a jumbo clear-out to free up that space in their wardrobes by donating 29 items to their clothes collections service, and reclaim their space in their closets. Clothes Aid is dropping free bags and flyers through homes across the country during all of September to promote Recycle Week and to encourage people to donate their 29 unused items (or more!). All householders have to do is phone up the helpline number: 0207 288 8545 to arrange a collection, and a Clothes Aid van will come and collect the bagged up items free of charge when it is in your area. Several UK charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, NSPCC, Make-A-Wish Foundation® UK, Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS), Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA), and Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice will also benefit from the funds raised by the donation of these clothes.
Since 1996, Clothes Aid has raised over £9 million for our partner charities, and this is a figure we’re obviously always striving to increase. So reclaim that space taken up by those 29 items today, have that jumbo clear-out, put them in bags and get Clothes Aid to collect them from your doorstep.
Check out our neat infographic below, with information about how important it is to reclaim your wardrobe!
Footnotes
1) *WRAP report, Valuing our Clothes, 2012, (http://loveyourclothes.org.uk/)
2) Office of National Statistics June 2015 population data
3) Office of National Statistics June 2015 population data
