The Air Ambulance Clothing Recycling Scheme

Air ambulances play a critical role every single day, saving lives in hard to reach areas in order to access emergency services as quickly as possible. Although their services are incredible, they wrongly receive no funding from the UK government; and are seen to approximately cost £2,500 for each air ambulance’s life-saving mission. This means that they are solely relying on people such as ourselves, giving donations directly and to various charities or from community activities. Currently, there is a petition directed at the UK Government and Parliament, including 134,143 signatures to start funding. With these are huge numbers, the parliament has planned to debate this petition on the 26th of April. Since Covid-19, the government has provided a grant of £6 million to help them during the pandemic. In response to this grant, Air Ambulance has said ‘Air ambulance charities rely on public donations to make their life-saving missions and so it is vitally important that people continue to support their local air ambulance charity.’

The Clothing Recycling Scheme Raising Money

One scheme that has gone unnoticed was implemented by a waste management company called Bailey’s Skip Hire. The innovative scheme launched in October 2020, where they are collecting and giving unwanted clothes and shoes to Air Ambulance to sell on and make money for their services. Not only does this scheme help raise vital funding for Air Ambulance, but they are also re-using clothing and building on a sustainable way of living. Whilst the fashion industry has dier effects on our planet, we are seeing that the sector is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions, with 1.5 trillion litres of water used annually. By using schemes such as seen by Bailey’s Skip Hire, we can see hundreds of bags of clothing being recycled, rather than ending up in landfill sites and having to be created again from raw materials. 

The Clothing Recycling Scheme Results

The clothing recycling scheme by Bailey’s Skip Hire has been hugely successful, with around £1000 being raised for Air Ambulance so far through a tonne of clothing and textiles. Whilst Bailey’s also runs a skip hire service, they were giving out textile bags given by Air Ambulance Warwickshire and Northamptonshire with each skip provided for customers to fill up and support the charity. 

Importance Of Recycling

The production of clothing uses huge amounts of energy, water, and other vital resources. Each time you recycle an item of clothing or pass it on to be re-used, you can help to save resources being used in creating new items. The clothing recycling scheme did not only involve passing on clothing to sell in charity shops but also selling end-of-life clothing to textile recyclers. At the textile recycling facility, items are sorted depending on the material through eco-friendly methods; with the need for re-dying being eliminated to reduce pollution. Only 0.3kg of textile waste in the UK are recycled, and with the use of schemes such as The Air Ambulance Clothing Recycling Scheme, we can help to grow these numbers whilst boosting funding for critical services. 

The Air Ambulance Funding

The Air Ambulance charity runs a chain of 57 shops across the UK, and are always organising activities, challenges, and events to help fund their free service helping the NHS. The Air Ambulance has said ‘volunteers are the heartbeat of our charity’, and with the help of Bailey’s Skip Hire money being raised to boost funding, we can help keep them alive whilst contributing to recycling tonnes of materials.

Bailey’s Skip Hire

Bailey’s Skip Hire also offer a variety of waste management and recycling services for both businesses and households. With both skip hire and collection services available, the company is able to dispose of materials including cardboard, plastic, metal, wood, hazardous items and other general waste. Each waste material collected from commercial and domestic projects is then taken to their licenced recycling facility, where items are taken through the full recycling process. Any end-of-life waste is also converted into energy to be used across Europe in energy plants, making sure every piece of material is disposed of in an eco-friendly manner. With achieving a huge 97% recycling rate, it is clear to see this company is helping businesses and individuals boost their green credentials, whilst reducing their carbon footprint together.