THE National Animal Welfare Trust (NAWT) are the latest charity in Cornwall to be affected by a local textile recycling company closing its doors.

These companies who buy unsold or unsaleable items from charity shops across Cornwall have ceased trading, leaving a majority of local shops with nowhere to send excess stock, and taking away an income source.

With none available, charity shops, including NAWT Cornwall, are being left with unusable and unsaleable items piling up. Previously, these items would have been collected for recycling, and a donation made to the charity by weight of the items. However with the final firm closing its doors, shops across Cornwall are feeling the effects.

At the NAWT Hayle Charity Shop, in one morning six customers came in with bags to donate stating they had been to all charity shops in Hayle and even the Helston area but were unable to donate to any of them.

The normal cycle starts with bags of items being dropped off to a charity shop by supporters and members of the public.

The items are then sorted through, put out for sale, and anything that hasn't sold or is unusable is bagged ready for collection by a textile recycling company.

This stock is collected weekly or every couple of weeks, and the charity earns a small amount of money from these items, as well as items they were able to sell. Truly meaning that nothing donated would go to waste.

A spokesperson from NAWT said: “It’s a serious problem and is something potentially going to impact charity shops across the UK.

“We are all now asking the same thing...What do we do now? We can’t simply dispose of the items, there is too much and it's also wasteful. This means we have no choice but to turn some stock away.

“This is such a shame for charity shops everywhere as it's affecting us all, and another small source of income to support those that charities are helping. So what could this mean for the future of Charity Shops? What are people to do with unwanted, perfectly good clothing and textiles?”