The UK discards approximately 711,000 tons of textiles each year, with nearly 49% ending up in general waste instead of being reused or recycled (WRAP, 2024). In response to this growing crisis, children’s knitwear brand Talou is delighted to be partnering with Mary’s Living & Giving Shops for Save The Children, to recycle end-of-lifecycle wool and cashmere, creating a new line of children’s knitwear.
Charity shops receive thousands of donations each year that they are unable to sell due to damage. For this project, Mary’s Living & Giving shops for Save the Children have collected end-of-lifecycle wool and cashmere products. This will be recycled by a third-party recycler, based in Yorkshire, into new yarn for the project.
“At Talou, we believe in considering every stage of a garment’s lifecycle, from design through to the end of its wearability,” says Ellie Whitehead, Founder and Director of Talou. “Collaborating with Save the Children is an exciting way to shine a light on innovative, UK-based circular solutions, while also ensuring these garments have new life breathed into them.”
Lynsey Scott, Stock Generation Mananger at Save the Children says, “Our London Mary’s Living & Giving shops have been really excited about this lovely project with Talou. Our shop managers and volunteers are very conscientious about sustainability and are always looking for ways in which donations that are unsellable can be repaired or repurposed. This has been a great initiative, and our shop teams have been a huge support in the extra sorting process, so a big thank you to them. At Save the Children, we understand how important the environment is and the impact it has on children’s lives, so developing circular fashion ideas and businesses is a great step in the right direction, and our shop teams are really proud to be supporting that.”
The initiative not only aims to reduce textile waste by providing an alternative exit strategy for damaged charity shop donations but also promotes circular fashion, a model in which materials can be continually repurposed, repaired, or recycled.
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