"  Your school can make a difference by supporting Friends of St Luke's "

 

 

Umbra Clothing will help your school to run a fundraising event. All the pupils have to do is bring in their unwanted clean clothes, i.e. Men’s Clothing, Women’s Clothing, Children’s Clothing, Household Textiles, blankets, Curtains, towels, paired shoes, handbags etc and Umbra Clothing will do the rest.

Umbra Clothing will come to your school on an agreed date, we will collect all the clothing, weigh the items collected and issue payment accordingly. This fundraising event will then go towards Friends of St Luke's.


This initiative aims to encourage clothing re-use and recycling

 

 

A  fundraising event will help to raise awareness for Friends of St Luke's.

 

  • Increase recycling rates, helping the environment.
  • Encourage an understanding of textile recycling, as textiles presents’ particular problems in landfill as synthetic  fibres, which are man made, and will not decompose.
  • Create awareness of how Woolen Garments will decompose however they produce methane, which is harmful to the Environment, hence contributes to Global Warming
  • Aids the balance of payments as we import less material for our needs.
  • Results in less pollution and energy saving, as fibres do not have to be transported from abroad.
  • Provides an affordable source of clothing to disadvantaged people throughout the World and emerging Countries in Eastern Europe
  • Creates jobs both locally and abroad and compliment the work which your school is doing in relation to the environment such as Eco Schools.

 

Why Recycle

There are ample reasons why you should recycle your used clothing, paired shoes, blankets, curtains, belts, handbags and stuffed animals. Not the least of which are the mountains of discarded garments that end up in Ireland’s landfills each and every year. Clothing that can take hundreds of years to decompose. It’s an alarming situation that’s growing bigger every day.  

 

The Bad News

As big a problem as landfills are they’re only part of the problem.  When clothing isn’t recycled, it means more and more has to be produced and that means more and more pollution for all of us.

Take cotton. The production of cotton destroys farmland and pollutes waterways. In fact, 22.5% of all agricultural insecticides and 10% of all pesticides used each year go into cotton farming.  It may be hard to believe, but the production of just one cotton t-shirt requires one-third of a pound of pesticides. Yikes!

What’s more, pesticides enter our ground water and streams affecting birds, bees, animals, the farm workers who have to work with them and eventually all of us.

Just as bad, the dyes, most of which contain heavy metals, are known to be harmful as well.

Think that’s all?  It’s not.


Synthetic polyesters and nylon aren’t any better or safer. They’re made from petrochemicals, a byproduct of oil refining which increases our need and reliance on oil and increases harmful pollution, which affects us all.

 

The Good News

You and your t-shirt can make a difference.


When you recycle, you conserve raw materials and natural resources. That means less has to be extracted, refined, transported and processed which lightens the load on Mother Earth. You also conserve the energy that’s needed in the manufacturing process. Less energy used means less needs to be generated, resulting in smaller carbon footprints and less greenhouse gases and emissions.

There’s another side to clothing recycling that’s equally as good. And that’s helping charities throughout Ireland and beyond together with providing support for third world countries with usable clothing they may not otherwise be able to afford. When you recycle your old clothing with Umbra Clothing, what you no longer want can be something someone else desperately needs.  It really is a win-win for everyone on both sides of the recycling cycle and can go a long way to making the world a better place for all of us across the globe.