The 22nd to 28th September 2025 sees the return of Recycle Week, a national campaign run by Recycle Now that encourages people to recycle more of their unwanted waste items. Now in its 22nd year, it’s the perfect opportunity to shine a light on the importance of recycling and donating.
Every year, millions of tonnes of usable items end up in landfills – from clothing and furniture to books and electronics. Most of which only require a small repair or a bit of upcycling to keep them in use. By choosing to recycle or donate instead of throwing these things away, we can protect the environment, reduce waste, and support communities across the UK.
Why Recycle Week Matters
Recycle Week is designed to raise awareness and inspire action. It’s not just about sorting your bins – it’s about rethinking how we use resources and making small changes that have a big impact.
When items go to landfill, they don’t just disappear. They release harmful greenhouse gases, pollute the environment, and take up valuable space as well as feeding the mass consumption problem by requiring us to replace them. Materials like textiles, plastics, and electronics can take hundreds of years to break down and leach harmful toxins into water streams and soils, causing untold damage to both humans and wildlife.
By recycling and donating, we prevent these items from becoming waste and instead create opportunities for reuse and regeneration.
Donating: A Sustainable Alternative
Donating your unwanted items is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to help. Clothes, furniture, books, and household goods can all find a second life through charities, community projects, small businesses or local recycling initiatives.
Your donations can:
- Support fundraising for local and national charities
- Reduce demand for fast fashion and mass production
- Provide affordable items for families and individuals
- Prevent unnecessary waste from reaching landfills
Spotlight on Inspiring Businesses
Many businesses and charities across the UK are making it easier than ever to recycle and donate your unwanted items and at We Are Repairs, we want to make it just as easy for you to find out about them, so we’ve created a Donate and Recycle section for you to search by category to find the scheme you need. Here’s a little bit about five of these wonderful initiatives…
Books & Paper Category – The Book Rescuers
The Book Rescuers, based in Essex, provide a UK-wide service to make it easy for you to donate your unwanted books and ensure they don’t end up in landfill. They sell the donated books online at a reduced cost so that not only do the books enjoy a new lease of life, but also anyone who may not otherwise be able to afford new books has the opportunity to purchase these books at a reduced price. If your books aren’t in a saleable condition, The Book Rescuers either donate them to charity or arrange for them to be recycled responsibly.
Glasses Category – Lions Club International
Lions Club International have been collecting, sorting & redistributing used spectacles for almost 35 years, helping to make a real difference to people’s sight. The lack of spectacles denies children and adults opportunities for education, employment and a better quality of life. With the cost of glasses ever increasing, the Lions Club’s wonderful work is more important than ever. You can donate old glasses by post or in person at any of the Lions Club venues across the UK.
Musical Instruments Category – The Nucleo Project
Set up in 2012, The Nucleo Project takes standard orchestral instruments – strings, wind, brass and percussion – in all sizes and distributes them to young people in need. So far, over 2500 instruments have been redistributed from lying in the back of a cupboard gathering dust to being played by students who needed them.
Shoes Category – Sal’s Shoes
As many will know, children tend to outgrow their shoes before they outwear them. Back in 2013, CJ Bowry struggled to find anywhere to donate her son’s outgrown shoes so they could be worn by someone else…so Sal’s Shoes was born. Now over 10 years on, they have found new feet for over 6,000,000 pairs of Sal’s Shoes in 65 countries around the world, including increasingly here in the UK.
Toys Category – Loved Before
Loved Before is the UK’s first eco-friendly, fully sustainable soft toy adoption agency, and once you’ve been on the website, we’re pretty sure you’ll never want to buy a new toy again! Charlotte founded Loved Before to make sure that our once beloved teddies, with their cherished memories and sentimental significance, can go on to find new families and start new adventures, not lie discarded in landfill.
Together with the other fabulous initiatives in the We Are Repairs Donate/Recycle Directory, these businesses show how simple choices can keep valuable items out of landfill and support communities across the UK.
Join the Movement This Recycle Week
This Recycle Week, think before you throw. Could your unwanted items help someone else? Could they be recycled into something new? By recycling and donating, you’re reducing waste, protecting the planet, and helping to create stronger communities.
Every small choice adds up to real change.
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