ABOUT
In late September 2014, we organised our highly successful and inaugural Keep Caring Clothing Drive 2014. This was a Hong Kong clothing drive supported by 17 corporate donor partners and reaching over 6000 staff that collected an impressive 1.4 tonnes of unwanted secondhand clothing and accessory donations in order to benefit local environmental and welfare charities and to raise awareness about Hong Kong’s high clothing waste rates.
The incoming donations were collected, sorted and redistributed to local charities, Christian Action, Pathfinders, Green Ladies of St James’ Settlement, Friends of the Earth (Hong Kong) and Lizzie Bee, who used the donations for to drive further environmental, social and economic opportunities. In addition, Redress collected and then sold the incoming high quality clothing and accessories at our third Get Redressed secondhand Pop-up, during which we welcomed a record number of shoppers and charitable funds that will further drive our educational consumer campaigns.
Finally, in addition to the widespread charitable benefits, our clothing drive also educated participants about how our love of fashion can have serious environmental and social impacts, focussing on:
- We buy so much: Globally, 80 billion garments are made from virgin resources every year
- Precious resources are wasted: The fashion and textile industry uses vast amounts of natural resources, such as water, oil and land
- We waste so much: Although textiles are almost 100% recyclable, Hong Kong’s landfills received an average of 293 tonnes of textiles per day in 2012
- Give your clothes a new life: Sell, swap or find a local clothing donation bank to give your clothes a chance to live on with someone else
Through this, we hope to have inspired participants about the positive role that they can take towards creating a more sustainable fashion industry through how they consume, care and dispose of unwanted clothing more consciously.
The Keep Caring Clothing Drive 2014 was organised in partnership with Miele, who enabled us to capture the maximum value from the incoming clothing donations by providing specialist laundry advice and cleaning support for selected high quality clothing, which entered our Get Redressed secondhand Pop-up shop. Miele rejuvenated clothing donations through stain removal treatment and careful laundering in order to transform the secondhand clothes back into their most lovable, usable and fashionable forms in a step that highlights the on going potential still present in various discarded secondhand clothes,.
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