(An article printed in The Salvation Army publication called the War Cry)

ONE man’s rubbish is another man’s resource. Yesterday’s fashions – easily and thoughtlessly discarded by today’s throwaway society – can offer more than 60 per cent of their useful life to someone else. That is the driving force behind The Salvation Army’s successful clothing bank scheme, and of the man at its helm Garth Ward – national recycling coordinator since the scheme commenced in 1991. It is operated in partnership with a commercial company – Kettering Textiles Ltd., (KT). ‘The Salvation Army supply the name and face of the business and negotiates clothing bank sites with local authorities,’ he says. ‘We also supply the working know-how and secure sales contracts. The clothes are donated to, and owned by, The Salvation Army. Kettering Textiles provides manpower, vehicles and transfer facilities to process them on our behalf as efficiently as possible.

’ The Salvation Army operates c. 2,750 of the 9,000 charity clothing banks in the UK. From the far north of Scotland in Lossiemouth to the southerly Channel Isles, from westerly Donegal to Norwich in the east, the sites yield a staggering 75 million items of clothing a year. Each bank collects around nine to ten tonnes – making a total of 25,000 tonnes in 2005. KT’s 95 per cent record for regular emptying is popular with local authorities.

“Franchised” collectors, who organise their own routes and collection timetables, are responsible for up to 120 banks in a given area. Specially designed hand held computers allow collectors to record how many bags are deposited in a bank, or if it needs maintenance. The information is transmitted daily to a central computer at the Wellingborough facility.

After collection the bags are stored in static 40 foot trailers until their 10-tonne capacity is filled. When a trailer is full it is taken to a central processing facility in Kettering. Here each bag is checked for books, bric-a-brac, soiled items etc. After sending some items to our own charity shops the remainder is packed into large canvas (botany) bags – each holds about 140 kgs of clothes. These bags are then loaded onto 40 foot trailers for transportation by road and sea to Eastern European Countries, Tunisia and elsewhere.

‘The turnover time from bank to sea terminal is usually between one and ten days, depending where the load comes from,’ says Garth. ‘Best quality items are sold through the Army’s chain of charity shops, or used to clothe people in its care. Garth emphasises that recycling is also about people. ‘We’re in the job-creation and people-recycling business. Giving clothes to people doesn’t solve their long-term problems – they need the dignity of work to support their families. By selling loads at reasonable prices to reputable traders in the developing world we are helping to create employment in those countries.

‘The system works like this. A trader will purchase a container full of clothes from us. This is then transported, by road and sea to the trader’s country. He then sells on to smaller traders, who buy according to their means. A man from a small village will have saved until he has enough to buy one bag. He in turn sells at affordable prices to people in his village. We do our best to ensure that our bags are always of a consistent quality and do not contain rubbish. This helps such people earn their living, and others to afford decent clothing.’ Back in the UK about 200 workers are employed by the partnership.

‘When the clothing bank project started back in 1991,’ Garth sums up, ‘our aim and objective was to provide employment and raise funds for The Salvation Army’s work. I think we have more than fulfilled that task.’

We used to sort all the items in the UK prior to export and typically we found that about 60% would be wearable, 30% would be of recycling or reprocessing grade and the remaining 10% would be unusable. However, we now send your clothes directly to developing countries for them to sort for themselves. Here we find that over 80% is reusable as clothing, 3% is unusable and the rest is turned into wiper cloths. This brings even greater benefits to our world.

The Salvation Army has a responsibility to the community it serves. Today requests for help continue to increase both in number and variety, while funds become harder to acquire. We really need your quality wearable clothing so that we can continue with our “good works.”