We are teaming up with the Restart Party and Ealing Council to bring you a special indoor January Reduce and Recycle hub. Held at St Marys Acton, The Mount, High Street, Acton, W3 9NW on 11 January 2025. The hub will have a free unwanted gift swap. We also have free electrical repair, booking is essential and appointments limited.
At the hub, we will be offering our usual recycling collection points for clothes and small electrical items. Ealing Repair Cafe will be on hand to to help people to mend and fix clothes and will be running draught excluder making workshops. Especially for January we will be hosting an electrical repair party with Restart party. We will also be running a unloved Christmas gift swap, as well as our usual book swap. Keep reading to find out more about all the great things available at the hub.
Ealing Council funds the hubs activity to early 2025. It was initially set up by Action West London with a Lottery grant from the Climate Action fund in 2021. The hub runs monthly on the first Saturday of the month. For full list of dates see Reduce and Recycle events.
Unloved gift swap
Bring an unloved gift and swap it for something you want!
We’ve all been there! You eagerly peel back the Christmas paper and staring back at you is a gift that just isn’t quite ‘you’.
What to do with those presents that you know that you wont use? We have set up the Gift swap for you to find a happy home for your unloved presents. Plus you go home with something you like and will use. Come along on Saturday 11th January with your unloved and unwanted new Christmas gifts for our swap and go home with something you do want. The Unloved Gift Swap will be open from 12 to 3 pm.
Did you know that three-quarters of returned clothes end up in landfill or energy-from-waste sites? Instead of letting these presents going to waste, bring your unloved gifts to the January Reduce and Recycle hub and swap them for someone else’s gift! It’s the sustainable flipside of a secret Santa! Santa will thank you and so will the planet!
As well as being a fun way to find a gift you will use and cherish, the Gift swap will help to reduce the waste at Christmas and your carbon footprint. It’s not exclusive to Christmas gifts either it applies to all gifts; if you have something you just never had a use for, bring it along to swap. You never know what treasure you could leave with!
All gifts that you want to exchange must be unused and unopened (if in packaging). Food gifts must be in date, and alcoholic gifts will be displayed separately and can only be redeemed with a photo ID for over 18s. If you don’t have anything to swap, you can still come and shop at the swap . We ask for a suggested donation of £5. Any proceeds will go to our local charities, such as Acton Homeless, Ealing Repair Cafe (online donations) and Ealing Foodbank.
Anything left at the end of the swap, we will sort and donate to the local charities listed above and charity shops. At our last hub all the Christmas Jumpers left over from the swap were passed to Acton Scope shop.
To find out more in our dedicated blog about a Free gift swap.
Donate Unopened Treats and Food to Ealing Food Bank
If you have left over unopened food or treats that you want to pass onto a good cause, we will be taking donations to Ealing Foodbank. Drop donations at the hub to support Ealing Foodbank in their ambition of anyone in our community should not go hungry. Ealing Foodbank provide three days of nutritionally balanced emergency food every week and support local people who are referred to us in crisis. They opened their first client centre in Acton in October 2013 and now have grown to 8 foodbank centres.
So check our the Ealing Foodbank latest shopping list and drop off items at St Mary’s Acton Church. The Church always has a donation box so you can donate to them all year round.
Repair with the fixing factory
The Restart project will be at the Reduce and Recycle hub offering free electrical repairs. Booking essential, so remember to book your 45 min appointment slot to fix your small electricals.
Bring along for repair the following (electrical only):
- Small Household Electrical Appliances that you can carry including kettle, toaster, blender, alarm clock, lamp, small portable vacuum cleaners or hairdryer
- IT and other Home Equipment such as games console controls, remote controls, keyboard, laptop, speaker or radio
For full details of what can and cant be fixed go to dedicated blog Electrical Repair Party.
Stop those cold draughts
Ealing Repair cafe will also be providing materials for anyone who wants to come along and make a free draught excluder. Draught excluders are great for keeping the warm in and heating bills low. The team will be helping anyone who wants to come along and make one.
If you have some old pillows or towels bring them along to use them as stuffing to create your own draught excluder.
See Ealing Repair cafe for inspiration and guides on this and other Textile Upcycling Projects.
January Reduce and Recycle Hub
At our Reduce and Recycle hub on Saturday 11 January at St Marys Acton we have our popular organisations, helping to reduce our waste. These organisations will help you recycle, as well as repair and reuse in Acton and beyond.
RECYCLE:
Bring along your old and unloved:
- Clothing, Shoes and accessories (10am – 2pm) Donations for TRAID charity www.traid.org.uk/wlwa
- Small electrical appliances (10am – 2pm). These must be small –small enough to fit in a shopping bag to TRAID, see details www.traid.org.uk
- Ealing Waste Team collecting for Terracycle These can also be dropped off to Greenford Reuse and Recycling Centre Terracycle collections:
- Biscuits and Snacks wrappers: All brands of plastic biscuit wrappers, all brands of plastic cake wrappers and all brands of plastic cracker wrappers (Not included is recycle paper or foil wrappers)
- Pringle Tubes with the metal bases only
- Coffee bean and ground coffee pouches and sachets: (Not included is coffee capsules, coffee grounds) Cardboard packaging can be recycled in Ealing doorstep collection.
- Bulk bags of tea bags and loose leaf tea packs: Cardboard packaging can be recycled in Ealing doorstep collection and teabags in food waste doorstep collection. Not included is individual tea bag sachets.
- Plastic toothbrushes and electric toothbrush heads: Plus electric flosser nozzles, flossing sticks and interdental brushes and dental floss containers. (Not collecting battery or electric toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, dental floss)
Ealing Council Waste team will also be there giving advice on the doorstep recycling and food waste collection. Find more tips and information here https://www.instagram.com/ealingrecycles/
REPAIR:
- Learn to fix your Clothes with Ealing Repair Café www.ealingrepaircafe.org
REUSE:
- Book Swap – Bring a book and take a book, with Churchfield Community Association
Pushing for Change
- Ealing Friends of the Earth: Will hopefully come to the hub and update us on the local issues and campaigns around air pollution, climate change, nature and biodiversity.
Come along to Reduce and Recycle hub and join the growing community of people who are helping Acton reduce, reuse and recycle more. For more information and links to all the great organisations involved in Reduce and Recycle hub.
Lets start 2025 by embracing sustainability and reducing our waste with the Acton Reduce and Recycle Hub!
Reduce and Recycle Hub Achievements
Since October 2022 at the Reduce and Recycle hub, we have:
- Saved 693kg of unwanted clothes and shoes from going to landfill
- Collected 223.1kgs of small electrical items for recycling
- Reduced carbon emissions (CO2) by 6.2 tonnes
- Helped save 1117.73 m3 of Water
- Taught clothes repair, upcycling and yarn making
- Resharpened kitchen and garden tools
- Helped rehome over 300 fiction & non fiction booksSee our Reduce and Recycle Hub 2023 review and so far we have achieved:
Are you part of an organisation, community group or as a trader interested in getting involved with the Reduce and Recycle hub? Or you can offer some time as a volunteer to help run some of the activities, please email our Reduce and Recycle hub manager, Mary Horesh at mary.horesh@actionwestlondon.org.uk.
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