M&S brings back Shwopping in support of Oxfam
Howard Lake | 14 October 2020 | News
Marks and Spencer has reopened Shwopping, its clothes recycling scheme in partnership with Oxfam. Paused in March as the coronavirus pandemic hit, Shwopping has been available in 287 M&S stores since 1 October.
Since it was launched in 2008 Shwopping has enabled customers to recycled 35 million clothing items, and raised nearly £23 million for Oxfam.
Taking advantage of a rise in wardrobe clear-outs during lockdown, M&S once again welcomes customers donating unwanted clothes, shoes, bras and accessories of any brand or condition. All clothing items that customers donate are:
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- sent to Oxfam to be resold in one of its shops or online
- reused via its social enterprise in Senegal
- or recycled into new materials, which are used by businesses such as M&S’s mattress filling.
In line with government guidelines, M&S is quarantining all donated items for 48 hours before sending them onto Oxfam.
SEE ALSO: M&S and Oxfam launch online Shwop Shop selling celeb fashion (5 September 2016)
Carmel McQuaid, Head of Sustainable Business for M&S, said: “At M&S, our goal is to source all our products with care and ensure nothing we make goes to waste. We want our customers to be confident that the clothes they buy at M&S are made to last, but if they finish wearing their old favourites, we make it easy to give them a new purpose through Shwopping. It’s a brilliant programme that many of our customers rely on as they shop with us for new staples—and now more than ever it’s perfect for those who have been decluttering.”
Fee Gilfeather, Head of Audience & Strategic Planning at Oxfam, added:
“We are delighted that M&S, which shares Oxfam’s sustainability ambitions, is bringing back Shwopping to its stores. Shwopping is designed to make it easy for customers and the general public to donate unwanted garments to Oxfam via M&S stores and helps to extend the lifecycle of clothes and reduce the number of items of clothing going to landfill. The return of Shwop drops to M&S stores means that there are more ways for people to donate to Oxfam and support our work fighting poverty and helping vulnerable communities around the world.”
From 2014: the ‘Love, Mum’ Shwopping campaign
- M&S and Oxfam launch online Shwop Shop selling celebrity fashion (5 September 2016)
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.