TRAID – Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development www.traid.org.uk

Visa Swap is proud to align itself with clothing charity TRAID and 2008 sees the Visa Swap and TRAID partnership enter into its second year.

TRAID benefits enormously from the partnership. Last year’s monetary donation to TRAID was ring-fenced and put towards the purchase of 27 new large textile banks positioned across the UK. TRAID also received a donation of 2,151 pieces.

Every year in the UK, consumers purchase 2.15 million tonnes of new clothing, shoes and accessories. In order to make room for all of the new, we are throwing away the old! Over 900,000 million items of clothing are thrown away each year in this country alone. At TRAID, we believe that some things are just too good to go to waste.

TRAID is a charity committed to protecting the environment and reducing world poverty by recycling and campaigning at home. We aim to divert clothes and shoes from landfill, raise funds for overseas development projects, and educate the public on environmental and world poverty issues.

We do this by operating a network of over 850 textile-recycling banks across the UK. Clothing that is donated to TRAID is sorted by hand according to quality and style. The best quality clothing is sold back to the public in one of TRAID’s London or Brighton-based charity shops. Clothing that is torn or stained is reconstructed and redesigned into new one-off pieces. These are sold under the award-winning recycled fashion label, TRAIDremade. The money that TRAID raises through this operation is donated to overseas development projects in other parts of the world.

In 2006, TRAID -- which The Independent has called ‘fashion’s chicest charity shop’ -- reused over 3,500 tonnes of unwanted clothing and shoes, donated funds to projects located in the Philippines, Madagascar and Uganda, and facilitated assemblies and workshops with over 6,000 primary and secondary students in London.

TRAID is pleased to be working with Visa Swap to encourage consumers to shop more responsibly and prove that it is possible to look fantastic without buying new clothes!