Helping to Give Clothes a Longer Life

Drop that coat, pair of jeans or top off at your nearby Oxfam shop and there's a good chance it will sell there. But what if it doesn't? At Oxfam, we work very hard to find a new use for every item of clothing you give. All thanks to hard-working specialist teams and volunteers, our partners and our busy sorting warehouse in Batley, West Yorkshire.

Oxfam has been doing the reusing and reselling thing since the 1940s when the first Oxfam Shop opened. Then, in 1974, Oxfam became the first national charity to develop its own facility for recycling and reusing clothes – helping reduce the number of clothes that go to landfill. Oxfam’s Batley warehouse and partners now handle 12,000 tonnes of textiles every year from donations to Oxfam.

• 4% of global CO2 emissions are caused by the clothing and apparel industry. The fashion industry produces 20% of all global wastewater.
• In the UK we buy more clothing per person than any other country in Europe.
• The poorest people on the planet, who did the least to cause climate change, are being affected the most – through droughts and floods
• Fast fashion thrives on low prices and that usually involves low wages – especially for women.

• Manufacturing a new pair of jeans has the same impact in terms of emissions as driving 60 miles in a petrol car.
• If each adult each year in the UK (on average) swapped buying one new pair of jeans for buying a pair of second-hand jeans instead, this would save the equivalent of over 3,246 million car miles (or over 3 billion car miles) in CO2 linked to jeans manufacturing. That's equivalent to flying a plane around the world more than 365 times.

By recirculating our clothes, buying and wearing second hand, we can help to reduce the demand for new clothes, which could in turn help to reduce the damage to our planet. Let’s help to make reusing clothes the new normal.

Visit in store, or online to find our extensive womenswear, menswear and accessories sections. As well as hundreds of designer and vintage items.

Just the money raised from one dress could help us buy drought-resistant seeds for people in Zimbabwe and help them to keep growing food despite the impacts of climate change.