Donate Your TOAST Pieces

Our pieces are designed for longevity but if your TOAST items are no longer needed, please return them to us – we will welcome them regardless of their condition. By taking them back, we will find a way to extend their use.

How does it work?

Bring your previously loved TOAST items into a TOAST Shop or send to us free of charge. We will find a new owner or the best path for reuse in our TOAST Circle initiatives. There is no limit on the number of items you may donate, nor on the number of times you may donate.

Items we accept

We will accept items in any condition, including items that are extensively damaged and beyond reasonable repair.

Clothing including dresses, tops, trousers, skirts, knitwear, coats and nightwear.
Accessories including leather bags, belts, hats, socks, scarves, tights and gloves.
Footwear including trainers, leather shoes or boots and slippers.
Homeware including blankets, throws, cushion covers, linens, aprons, towels and rugs.

We will only accept donations of TOAST branded products. Donations must be dry but do not need to be clean or ironed. Woollen donations must be moth-free. For a list of what we can't accept, please read our Donation Terms & Conditions.

Sorting

Our in-house Circle team will sort and grade all donated items by hand into 'Nearly New', 'Lightly Worn' and 'Well Worn', to decide where they should go next.

Managing all donations in-house is an investment for TOAST, ensuring we retain full visibility of how the garments will be assessed and used. This means you can trust that we will do the right thing with your items.

Cleaning

Items that will be resold will be disinfected using water-free, low-energy consumption technology or deep cleaned in a tank which recycles the cleanest water in the next wash, reducing our environmental impact.

A new path

Once we have sorted and graded your previously loved pieces, we will find a new use for every item.

Graded items that are 'Nearly New' or 'Lightly Worn' will be available to buy online from us as part of TOAST Reworn, launching in October 2023.

'Well Worn' items that are not suitable for Reworn will be reused in our circular initiatives or donated to our partner TRAID for them to responsibly reuse. TRAID is a UK charity working towards reducing the social and environmental impact of our clothes. Our donations help to provide them with the necessary funds to improve working practices in the textile industry.

10% of the revenue from the sale of Reworn garments will also be donated to TRAID’s long-term programme with educational foundation Rights Education And Development Centre (READ), an NGO supporting communities in Tamil Nadu, South India.

TRAID is a registered charity in England and Wales (297489), partnering with Rights Education And Development Centre (READ). READ is registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act 1975.

All donations are subject to our Donation Terms & Conditions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I donate to TOAST?

Research by Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that extending the average life of clothes by just nine months would save £5 billion in resources used to supply, launder and dispose of clothing. We are welcoming all clothing, accessories and textiles regardless of their age, quality or condition. All donations will be sorted in-house to allow full ownership over how they will be assessed and used.

Once we have sorted and graded, we will find a new use for every item. Graded items that are 'Nearly New' or 'Lightly Worn' will be available to buy online from us as part of TOAST Reworn, launching in October 2023. ‘Well Worn' items that are not suitable for our Reworn initiative will be reused in our circular initiatives or donated to our partner TRAID to be responsibly reused.

We are proud to be partnering with UK charity TRAID to offer a solution for these items. Every aspect of TRAID’s work aims to minimise, improve and transform the impact of clothes – from stopping clothes being thrown away and extending the life of clothes in their charity shops, to delivering sustainable education and funding international development projects that tackle issues central to our industry.

Will I still be able to swap my TOAST pieces?

Yes, our evolving Circle initiatives will not displace any existing ones. We support all initiatives that extend the lifespan of garments, and appreciate that many of our customers will choose to use other channels.

We will continue to host our Exchange clothes-swapping events over the coming months and from September, we are reinstating permanent swapping rails into our Bath, Edinburgh, Llandeilo and London, Notting Hill shops.

If you have Exchange tokens or items to swap, we hope that you will find some pieces you love at the next TOAST Exchange event. Alternatively, if your pieces are damaged beyond repair or ‘Well Worn’ we will take them back and find a new use for them.

Other companies offer an incentive for clothing donations, why doesn’t TOAST?

Our TOAST Circle initiatives are investments that we are making to extend the use of our garments and reduce our environmental impact. TOAST are welcoming ALL clothing, accessories and textiles regardless of their age, quality or condition. By taking back all our textiles, we will find a way to extend their use – whether that is reusing, repurposing or reselling. We have invested in every stage of our operation, meaning there are costs associated with processing each individual item. The TOAST team manages the sorting, grading, cleaning, preparing, selling and shipping of garments internally to allow full ownership over how garments will be assessed and used.

We expect many items donated will not be suitable for resale. ‘Well Worn' items that are not suitable for our Reworn initiative will be reused in our circular initiatives or donated to our partner TRAID to be responsibly reused.

If we are able to resell donated pieces, 10% of the revenue will be donated to TRAID’s long-term programme with READ, an NGO supporting communities in Tamil Nadu, South India.

What will happen to the items that are not suitable for reselling?

‘Well Worn' items that are not suitable for our Reworn initiative will be reused in our circular initiatives or donated to our partner TRAID to be responsibly reused.

Our circular initiatives include TOAST Repair, our free mending service, TOAST Exchange, our events-based clothes swap and TOAST Renewed, our collection of creatively repaired pieces. TOAST Reworn, a way to purchase previously worn pieces from past collections, will be launching later this year.

Through TRAID, items may be sold in a charity shop, reused by community repair groups or design students or recycled into building insulation or car-seat fillings. Some of the garments are even broken down into fibres and respun into new yarn. These channels will provide further funding for TRAID’s international development projects.

How does TRAID prevent clothing from going to landfill?

One of the biggest issues with the second-hand industry is clothing being exported to different countries and ending up in landfill. This is exacerbated by exporters not hand-sorting items and removing contaminated pieces in the process. TRAID has been fighting this issue since it launched in 1999. By hand-sorting the items it receives and removing contaminated waste, everything viable can be resold, reused or recycled. The initial process reduces the likelihood of donations ending up in landfill by hand-sorting items into four main categories:

Shop Saleable: Sold through TRAID’s 12 charity shops.
Recyclable: TRAID partners with organisations to redirect, repurpose or recycle clothing. Items may be used by design students and members of community repair groups; used textiles can become building insulation or car-seat fillings, or as a result of more recent collaborations garments can be broken down into fibres and respun into new yarn.
Reusable: Sold to textile processors within the UK, undergoing rigorous hand sorting to remove any rubbish and recyclable goods, before then being exported. In TRAID’s case, the reusable products can reach retail stores in end points in Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Zambia. TRAID is able to sell 97% of the items that are exported.
Waste: Sent to Energy from Waste (EfW.) who burn non-recyclable waste to generate steam to power a turbine which in turn generates electricity. Some EfW plants are also able to provide direct heating for local properties. The waste going to an EfW would otherwise have been disposed of in a landfill site.

What does TRAID do with the funds it generates from TOAST?

TRAID will turn unsaleable TOAST items donated by us into funds to support garment workers and their families. All profits generated will go to the non-profit organisation READ, supporting their work with communities in Tamil Nadu, South India. TRAID has worked closely with READ since 2013 to address serious labour rights abuses, inspired by their tireless work with local communities, garment factories, spinning mills, trade unions and state and national governments.

The southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu is a major manufacturing hub for knitwear, with at least 1,600 cotton spinning mills and many factories supplying major high street fashion brands. READ works to improve the working conditions for over 25,000 garment workers, particularly migrant workers who travel to find work in the textile sector from other Indian states including Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal. Many of the children of migrant workers end up working to supplement the family income, with few opportunities for education.

READ’s Tamil Nadu initiative aims to improve the numeracy and literacy skills of young women. It gives them access to tailoring training that helps them to secure work, with a year-long qualification, which is the equivalent of an A-Level in the UK. "Getting girls back into school and further education is a pathway to a better future," says Leigh McAlea, Head of International Programmes at TRAID. "It improves their quality of life, income earning potential and self-confidence. We can’t wait to empower more girls to get into the classroom."

Read more about TRAID