The Green Impact team from the Estates and Facilities Department at the University of Chester organised a Swish Swap Shop event to encourage recycling and upcycling unwanted items.

The event took place on the 24th January with aim of the event was to encourage University staff, students and members of the public to recycle unwanted items such as adults� and children�s clothes, toys, books, toiletries and accessories in exchange for similar new items.

Another aim of the event was to raise money on the day, so for those that did not have items to swap just came along and could buy any item for �1 each. The overall aim of the event was to generate donations and proceeds for 3 charities that we partnered with,  they will receive all of items left over from the Swish Swap Shop and all proceeds.

The charities who are we are working with are Share Shop in Chester, to help raise money for https://shareaid.co.uk/ (help the homeless in Chester) Claire House Hospice https://www.clairehouse.org.uk/ and The Women�s Refuge. 

The event was a huge success and attracted 92 visitors through the door who were a mixture of staff, students and the public, many swapped items and a number just purchased, raising a fantastic �130 for the charities. There is also an abundance of items left over from the event to donate to the charities involved, approximately 30 bin bags of clothes shoes, toys and books.

The Swap Shop also hosted the pop-up Patch Challenge project� a small team of student and staff volunteers from across the University, who were on hand to help people repair their clothes through skill sharing. Helen Blank, one of the staff volunteers said �The Patch Challenge team were really pleased to be part of the event. The more we can encourage people to repair, reuse and recycle their clothes, the less textile waste that goes into landfill. Today we enjoyed helping visitors repair 8 garments which would otherwise have been unwearable or thrown in the bin.� Items included a sewing machine hem repair on a top, a large tear in pair of trousers patched by hand and shortening a pair of pyjamas. We�re looking forward to seeing what people bring to the next one!

Do you have a good news story you would like included in the next Green Impact newsletter? Email katie.jepson@nus.org.uk with your story!
 

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