Charity Shops, why bother?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. I am raising awareness of the environmental benefits of reuse. In particular, how charity shops benefit from donations and how you can save money from buying from them. There are three aspects to being more environmentally friendly, these are to reduce, reuse and recycle. Giving to charity shops is a form of reuse, and this is why you should give:

• Charity shops generate funds for charity by selling on unwanted items – i.e. providing a reuse opportunity for them.
• UK charity shops' reuse activity alone helps reduce CO2 emissions by about 2.5 million tonnes per year
• Charity shops are providing a second life for an increasing range of items, including books, CDs, DVDs, videos, toys, furniture and electrical items.
• More important items could be made with the materials that would otherwise be used.
• It reduces the amount of pollutants that would be required to make a new item or recycle old material.
• Fewer resources, less energy, less effort.
The story of shoes...
• The shoes are made in a factory, creating 2.49kg of carbon emissions per pair.
• They are flown into the country then put on a lorry to storage until the shop needs them this produces about 2.5kg per mile.
• The shoes are bought by you and taken home.
• You wear the shoes everywhere for a year.
• The shoes get too small.

You have a choice:
1. Throw them away and they will go to landfill for the next 25-40 years before they decompose.
OR
2. You could give them to a local charity shop so someone else can wear them as much as you did, saving all the energy to make new shoes by reusing old ones.
As a nation, we throw away about 1,500,000 tonnes a year of clothes of which the textiles industry handles about 300,000 tonnes. There are therefore over 1,000,000 tonnes going to landfill sites.

So if you have some clutter at the back of your wardrobe, why not clear it out rather than it gathering dust? Have some old toys that are no use to you anymore? Give them to someone who can benefit from them as much as you did.

Thank you again for reading my blog. Please now post a response with your thoughts; you could also maybe answer a few of these questions to help me with my research.
• Do you support, oppose or are you undecided about charity shops?
• Had you thought about the benefits of reuse before reading this blog?
• How often do you shop at charity shops, why? If not, why?
• Have I changed your opinion of charity shops?

Deborah