Clothes Recycling South West London

What is the best method for clothes recycling South West London? It’s a huge area, unsurprisingly lying South of the river. The SW postcode covers Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth, West Lambeth, North Merton and Croydon and North East Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames and other parts, and they are all so different.

To learn how to deal with reused or recycled things, unwanted clothes, and small electricals, or find free home collections, charity shops, and recycling banks that deal with tonnes of textile recycling, read on.

London is a surprisingly green place, and what stands out in the South West are the number of parks. Richmond Park is an immense green space which is almost like a country estate, so wild and unmanicured, where herds of deer roam. The deer are not, as many assume, wild deer, but carefully managed as on an actual country estate. But there are many kinds of wildlife here too.

Clothes Recycling South West London – Richmond

The park is hundreds of years old, and 2,500 acres. There are anthills here which are 200 years old. They belong to Yellow Meadow Ants. Did you know that ants live continuously in the same place for generations? I didn’t, or at least I never thought about it. Richmond Park is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a European Special Area of Conservation, and a Site of Special Importance for Nature Conservation. It has the largest area of lowland acid grassland in London, and over 1,000 ancient trees. There are lots of ponds, and this acid grassland, although it sounds unpleasant, is actually a rare kind of habitat in the UK, and very beautiful.

As well as ants and deer there are birds like kingfishers, reed warblers, sand martins, gulls and heron, always a crowd favourite for their size and striking long necks and black and white faces. Kingfishers, meanwhile, are almost a mythical creature as they are so fast they are hard to spot, surprisingly tiny yet such a beautiful combination of colours that they do not seem to belong in this landscape. In fact, there are 144 species of birds here.

Beautiful Butterflies

Mandarin Duck at Richmond Park.
Keven Law from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There are not as many butterflies in South West London, but 29 species is also a lot. It is incredibly uplifting to spot a beautiful butterfly resting on a flower. Their colours and patterns are more harmonious and sometimes more unexpected than any artwork. And if you see them rise into the air, especially in pairs, and flutter around each other, it’s so joyous. And of course, where there are butterflies, there are caterpillars. Caterpillars are somehow funny where butterflies are Art. They, too, come in all sorts of colours, some quite surprising. I thought that caterpillars were supposed to stay camouflaged amongst leaves, but I’ve seen bright blue details, and often bright yellow, too. As well as the colours, they are sometimes furry or spiky and their names are ingenious too: the woolly bear is a caterpillar of a kind of moth.

Clothes Recycling South West London

There are 11 species of bats here. You might find them harder to spot than birds or butterflies, or at least I do. This is partly because you might not be expecting them, and mistake them for a small bird. And partly because they fly at dusk and at night, and naturally that makes it harder for us to see them. But they have a particular kind of zigzagging, flittering way of flying that once noticed, can’t be mistaken for a bird again. However, you’d probably have to be quite knowledgeable and have good eyesight to distinguish the 11 species apart in the gloaming.

You are also going to see a lot of animals that are perhaps more to be expected but still lovely: ducks, rabbits and geese are very easy to spot and identify.

How to Reach Richmond Park

All of this makes Richmond Park quite exciting at any time of year. You have to be careful in enjoying the wildlife though, and just watch it at a distance. It is really like being in a wild place. The advantage of Richmond Park over the wilds of Scotland is that it can easily be reached by bus or other public transport, as well as by car as there is tonnes of parking and very well looked after roads going through it.

There are also toilets, a cafe, and more formal gardens, planted with flowers.

Clothes Recycling South West London – Do it for the Nature

And why am I talking about Richmond Park and its nature? Because, by recycling your clothes, or buying them second hand, you are supporting this beautiful, ancient sight. The climate everywhere is changing, in part because we keep making so much new stuff. If we could stop or slow that down, emissions would be lowered. The temperature might stay the same, or similar to what it has been historically. England is a cool and damp place, and these woodlands are not used to hot weather.

You can see how all the grass dries out and withers in summer now, something which used to be a rare sight but now feels like normal. The insects and other species can’t live without plants to eat. Other animals need to eat the insects to live, and so on upwards. They need somewhere to live. By trying to think about what we are doing, we will help them to continue for many years, perhaps even many hundreds of years, to come.

Where to drop off

South West London is absolutely full of charity shops and clothing banks for textile recycling. Look up shop opening times and bring your unwanted items with you on the way to the park. Do not leave your things outside if it is closed, though. Otherwise, you can leave your clothing in clothing recycling banks at any time, day or night. You can also consider selling, on ebay or another app, or to a vintage store.

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