Clothes Swap Cafe
In May 2024 we set up a Clothes Swap Cafe project, thanks to a grant from the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority‘s Zero Waste Community Fund. Over the next few months we’ll be working with Indigo and other local organisations to run Clothes Swap Cafes at various locations across Wirral, providing a fun, community driven way to reduce waste and promote sustainability. There will also be workshops and activities focused on sustainable fashion and reuse.
We welcome anyone who would like to join our volunteer team for the Clothes Swap events and take part in a workshop (see dates below). Please email wen@la21.net for more details.
If you would like to have a go at creating the upcycled items that we have made in the sustainable fashion workshops, here are some instructions to follow:
No sew T-shirt tote bag
Scrunchie (you can hand sew if you don’t have a sewing machine)
We made a photo montage from our Clothes Swap Cafés at NEO Community in June and at Indigo in July. We hope it gets across the fun atmosphere of the events, the range of items donated and the positive reaction from visitors to the idea of swapping clothes.
Dates For Your Diary
136 Bedford Road, Rock Ferry, CH42 2AS
Clothes Swap Cafe
Saturday 29th March, time TBC
Indigo will be holding the spring edition of their Clothes Swap in March. We’ll have more details nearer the time.
Past Events
Wirral Environmental Network
Sandon Building, Falkland Road, Wallasey, CH44 8ER
Clothes Swap Cafe
Friday 6th December
Indigo
136 Bedford Road, Rock Ferry, CH42 2AS
Clothes Swap
Saturday 30th November
Quirky Community Hub
124e Market St, Hoylake, Wirral, CH47 3BH
Sustainable Fashion Workshop for Volunteers
Tuesday 5th November
Clothes Swap Café
Saturday 16th November
Wirral Environmental Network
Sandon Building, Falkland Road, Wallasey, CH44 8ER
Sustainable Fashion Workshop for Volunteers
Tuesday 8th October
Clothes Swap Café
Friday 11th October
St James Centre
344 Laird Street, Birkenhead, CH41 7AL
Sustainable Fashion Workshop for Volunteers
Friday 20th September
Clothes Swap Café
Monday 23rd September
Indigo
136 Bedford Road, Rock Ferry, CH42 2AS
Clothes Swap
Saturday 20th July
Neo Community
Beaconsfield Community House, Rock Ferry, CH42 3YN
Sustainable Fashion Workshop for Volunteers
Wednesday 19th June
Clothes Swap Café
Wednesday 26th June
The Environmental Costs of Fast Fashion
A 2021 report by Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority found that in Wirral our green bins contained an average of 220g of textiles per household per week – 5% of all waste. 76% of this is clothing and shoes which are still in good enough condition to be worn.
Growing the cotton and dyeing the materials for one pair of jeans and one T-shirt can use up to 20,000 litres of water. It would take you over 13 years to drink this amount!
Thanks to Waterwise for this statistic in the section on their website about embedded water in the fashion industry.
Sourcing pre-loved clothing instead of buying new is a great way to save water resources.
Did you know that the fashion industry is reponsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions? Or that textile production contributes more to climate change than international aviation and shipping combined?
Instead of shopping for new clothes, finding ways to keep wearing the ones we have or buying or swapping pre-loved items can greatly reduce the environmental impact of our style choices.
– If we could double the lifespan of garments, we would reduce the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 44%.
In 2022, a study by WRAP calculated that the nation’s wardrobes hold 1.6 billion items of unworn clothes. The average UK adult has 118 items of clothing in their wardrobe and 26% of these were unworn for at least a year.
All these unworn clothes are a huge resource we can use, which presents a great opportunity to reduce the impact of the fashion industry on the environment.
