Unloved gift swap at the Acton Reduce and Recycle Hub

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 do you do with these unloved and unused gifts? We are here to help, with our unloved gift swap at the Reduce and Recycle Hub. The Gift Swap is on Saturday 11th January from 12 to 3 pm. Bring along any unloved and unwanted new Christmas gifts for our swap. Then go home with something you will use and want.

Presents going to waste

In 2023, almost a third planned to return, regift, sell or donate their gifts from last Christmas the Post Office discovered. The research predicts £232 million worth of presents will end up as returns across the UK. The top 5 returned gifts after Christmas are Shoes, kitchen appliances, video games, sweets and candles.

Did you know that three-quarters of returned clothes end up in landfill or energy-from-waste plants?

A report by the BFC’s Institute of Positive Fashion found UK clothing returns leads to 23 million garments end up as waste. This means around 75% of total returns. Also the rise of clothes Take-back schemes where fashion retailers take your second-hand clothes and promise to help prolong the life cycle of clothes are not as green as they seem. This article “Why one H&M Skirt Travelled 15,000 Miles After It Was Brought Back to the Store” highlights some schemes don’t work. So think twice when you return or drop off items on the high street.  

Instead of letting these presents going to waste, bring your unloved gifts to our unloved gift swap! It’s the sustainable flipside of a secret Santa! Santa will thank you and so will the planet! 

Free Gift Swap

Our Gift Swap at the Reduce and Recycle hub on Saturday 11 January from 12 to 3 pm. It is a fun, sustainable and environmentally friendly. Also its a great way to redistribute something you really aren’t going to use and give it a good home. 

As well as being a fun way to find something new. It also it helps to reduce the waste produced at Christmas and carbon footprint. It’s not exclusive to Christmas gifts either. This applies to gifts for every occasion; 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 are exchanged must be unused and if in packaging unopened. Food gifts must be in date, and alcoholic gifts will be displayed separately and can only be redeemed with a photo ID.

If you don’t have anything to swap, come and shop the swap for a minimum donation of £5. Proceeds will be donated to local charities.

Anything that is left at the end of the swap, will be sorted and donated to local charities below and charity shops. For our Christmas Jumpers swap we passed our left over tops to Acton Scope shop.

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.

Local charities need donations and gifts

If you cant make it along on the day with your unloved presents, please consider passing on to these great organisations:

• Acton Homeless take items such as men’s jeans, tracksuit bottoms, shoes and new underpants. They also take toiletries, women & children’s clothing, nappies, baby wipes, sleeping bags. Plus kitchen Items like washing up liquid, tin foil, washing powder and cooking oil. For full donation list see https://actonhomelessconcern.org/what-you-can-do.html
• Ealing Food Bank: Every month they publish their donation list and donations are accepted at St Mary’s Church. https://ealing.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-food/
• Ealing Soup Kitchen take for Winter items like thermal wear, tents, sleeping Bags, umbrellas, raincoats, new underpants, toiletries, mobile phones, bags for life and some long life food, refer to the full list here https://www.ealingsoupkitchen.org/donate

So put it in your diary to come along Saturday 11 January from 12 to 3 pm, to swap your unloved gifts for something you will cherish.

January Reduce and Recycle Hub

Also at our January Reduce and Recycle hub on Saturday 11 January at St Marys Church Acton we have a variety of organisations, helping to reduce our waste. These organisations will help you recycle, as well as repair and reuse in Acton and beyond, where you can:

• Reduce
• Repair
• Reuse
• Recycle

For full details of all the activities see January Reduce and Recycle Hub & Repair Party.

Are you part of an organisation, community group or as a trader interested in getting a stall? 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.