We are very often asked by concerned clients 'what do we do with the things we remove from property clearances'
The assumption is that the items are simply dumped in the nearest landfill site.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
We are totally aware of our responsibility for the safeguard of the environment, for now and for the future generations.
We are always looking for new and innovative ways to dispose of the items we remove from property clearances, for example:
We give, free of charge, a large percentage of furniture and household effects we receive to underprivileged people, this is through various agents.
Old, unusable, wooden furniture or timber in general is deposited into one of our super large recycling skips and sent for recycling when full, at our cost.
Any old unusable scrap metal, saucepans, cookers etc are deposited into one of our super large recycling skips and sent for recycling.
Old, soiled mattresses are sliced all the way round the edges and the coiled metal core is added to the scrap skip for recycling.
All the books we receive are donated and repurposed. Clothes and shoes are given to charity.
We donate lots of other smaller items as well as better quality furniture to various charities.
We are a commercial organisation and to that extent we also sell goods on our behalf which helps to reduce our overall operating costs.
Another new idea we are working on is the donation of things from property clearances that most of us take for granted and that's things like clothes, shoes, bed linen, pens, paper, toiletries, crockery the list just goes on and on.
Our side of the transaction is conducted totally free of charge. We clear 100's of properties each year and process the loads back at our depot and then give the proceeds to export agents who then arrange for the goods to be shipped to various countries around the world. ( these agents tend to be African nationals who are based in the UK) We have to be realistic when dealing with agents, these goods are not going to reach the needy without organisations making a profit out of it, it wouldn't be sustainable. When one thinks a little more about the whole process, the agents will only be able to sell the goods within the budget of the recipients therefore I think the most important thing is making the goods available rather than depositing them into British landfill sites.
Earlier this year I went to South Africa, for the first time, and was staggered by the poverty that people are living in especially the remote areas and the townships in Cape Town. This is the 21st Century and these people have so very little.
We went on a tour of various living accommodation blocks and they were absolutely filthy. People are forced to share one bathroom between dozens of people and although these people were friendly and welcoming you could see the despair in their faces.
We were taken to different schools, the children seemed happy enough but they are clearly disadvantaged with the lack of simple things such as pens and paper.
The secondary school children lack even more including personal hygiene products and the girls sanitary items which can prevent them from attending school.
Crime and drugs are rife and all the pointers are that the children will become embroiled if opportunity passes them by unchallenged.
Whilst there we were so touched by the plight of the poorer communities that we decided to start things moving by making a substantial donation of personal hygiene products and stationary . This was distributed to various local schools.
