Household rubbish collections

Bookable collections for charity shops

A new service offering free doorstep collections of donations for charity shops has just launched in Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

RBWM has teamed up Traid – a charity which collects and sorts clothes for resale in their London-based charity shops – to offer the free collection service across the borough.

Traid put unwanted clothes back into use, preventing thousands of tonnes of clothing from ending up in landfill, while the profits made from their resale go on to support projects that reduce the environmental and social impacts of clothing.

This raises vital funds for global projects to improve conditions and working practices in the textile industry.

What can you donate?

• Clean, wearable clothes.
• Shoes.
• Accessories.
• Sheets and household linen (excluding duvets and pillows).

You can book a collection for a minimum of one large bag or three small bags of clothing, but Traid encourages residents to donate more than the minimum amount, as this helps the charity to deliver a more efficient service.

This service is open to all RBWM households, including flats, and allows you to book a collection on a day that suits you.

Book a Traid collection

Kerbside collection

You can also recycle old clothes and textiles alongside your fortnightly rubbish collection service. The items we collect include:

• Old, worn clothing,
• Socks and tights,
• Shoes (paired),
• Unwanted handbags,
• Belts,
• Knitwear,
• Curtains,
• Towels,
• Bedding, blankets.

We cannot collect duvets and pillows.

To use this fortnightly service:

• Place your clean, dry clothes and textiles in bag clearly labelled "textiles" (please do not use charity branded bags),
• Place the bag out, next to your rubbish bin on collection day (don't place the bag in your rubbish bin),
• We can only collect one bag from each house (we cannot collect textiles from blocks of flats - please book a Traid collection instead).

Textiles are collected along with your rubbish bin every other week. They are placed in cages under the vehicle and kept separate from your rubbish.

Alternatively, old clothes and textiles can be recycled in a number of ways.

• Clothes in a good condition can be donated to charity,
• You could use a clothes / textiles recycling bank.

Love Your Clothes

Love Your Clothes was launched in 2014 to address the landfill issue and to help inspire and influence people to make small conscious changes to reduce the impact of clothes on the environment.

It aims to improve the sustainability of clothing, reduce the environmental impact of clothing and increase the active life of the clothes we wear.

Love Your Clothes provides help and advice on:

• buying clothes.
• care and repair.
• refashion and upcycle.
• unwanted clothes.

Get involved and find out how you can Love your clothes.