Ladies of South Wales and the South West - I want your bra's!

Yes, I do!!! 

No, not the one you're wearing, nor the grey, stretched ones with one wire missing that really need to be 'retired' to the great bra-home in the sky. I'm after those ones that are sitting in your undie drawer that you bought but which don't quite fit, or aren't quite the right colour to be wearable, or which you've just never found comfortable. 

Why do I want them? Take a peek here and all will be explained. In brief (no, I don't want those as well, even if they match the bra!) the recycled bra's are sent to Africa where they are used to 'support' family and community based small textile micro businesses and allow more women to have access to well made bras, which are in scarce supply, whilst allowing other families and communities to make a living. 

UK Breast Cancer charities benefit because for every tonne of bras collected, the charity receives £1000 towards their work. 

I saw this idea recently and thought it was amazing. The charities are targetting business to have bins on the premises, but I asked them if I could spread the word through the business networking community and collect on their behalf that way - which they were thrilled by. 

So, my pink 'BRA BIN' will be accompanying me to 4N and other networking meetings around the South Wales and South West area for the next month or so. If you have unwanted, unloved but intact and wearable bras that you'd be willing to donate - or gentlemen, ask the lady in your life if she does (or check your own collection, I'm broadminded and won't ask questions ).

Please PM me if you'd like to donate, I'll organise for the donations to be collected and will get them to the charity. 

Wow, I've had some amazing offers of donations already - thank you so much 4N!

£1,000 per ton sounds seriously high. Going rates for donations from clothes collections (mixed clothes really)  vary from £80 (which is a rip off on the back of the charity) and £300 (which is considered more or less OK). I read somewhere that the actual trade value per ton is £900ish. Admittedly, as far as I recall from the back of my head)

How did you achieve £1,000 per ton? Serious question.

Dont know if this is of any use

There was a campaign last year to gather bra's and they used the theme of creating the worlds biggest ball made of Bra's - It even went on tour around the UK and was covered by breakfast TV. Could you try something similar?

Another idea would be to contact all the lady underwear shops in your area to see if they will allow you to have a collection bin for old bra's in their store. M&S are making a big of their trade in old clothes campaign, so maybe other shops would be keen to copy the idea. I did something similar when I was trying to gather tools for rebuilding projects in Kosovo - I managed to get a collection bin in all the local DIY stores.

This is not something I have personally negotiated or been involved in, but a campaign I am supporting - all the details of the monies received and what happens to the items collected is on the official charity page linked from the first post. So, as to how they achieved such a high value for the recycled textiles, I'm afraid you'll have to ask them! 

I am simply acting as a collection point and awareness raiser in my area, and hoping that the lovely ladies of 4N will want to help this cause too.