CHP has donated more than 60 unwanted privacy curtains to charities in Liverpool and Nottingham, enabling people to learn sewing, encourage fabric reuse and support wellbeing. This is part of ongoing projects supporting initiatives like Recycling Week (17-23 October 2022), measuring and supporting social value activities and delivering sustainable facilities offering safe, flexible, well-used and welcoming spaces.
CHP teams are continuously looking at ways in which we can improve services at our sites and create a central hub for information and support for patients, building users and local communities. Most of CHP’s 310 health facilities are in areas of high health and wellbeing needs; CHP’s sites not only provide health services they also offer many community-based and wider wellbeing support.
In November 2021, CHP launched the Buildings at the Heart of the Community initiative that allows local community groups and charities to host healthcare and wellbeing related events and activities at our sites and a key part of our social value activities.
Fabric reuse and recycling supporting sewing projects
Our Operations and Relationship Managers at our CHP sites worked with local charitable organisations and the CHP CSR Delivery Manager.
- 22 curtains from Litherland Town Hall Health Centre were donated to Toxteth Town Hall Community Resource Centre (www.toxtethtownhall.org.uk/) for projects including ‘Sew it Begins’ – a sewing course designed to help give local people new skills whilst combatting loneliness. The sewing group plan to make aprons for other service users to use in their gardening project “Growing Community Roots’ which they will be launching soon. Not only will the team make the gardening aprons to use whilst they are growing the produce, but they are also making kitchen aprons to use when they cook meals.
- The team at Mere Lane Neighbourhood Health Centre in Anfield, Liverpool donated 26 fabric curtains which would have otherwise gone to a landfill. Two organisations Wargrave House, a special educational needs school in Newton Le Willows, and the Big Help Project (www.bighelpproject.com/) plan to upcycle the fabric into new clothes that will be given to disadvantaged communities.
- Around 20 privacy curtains from our Nottingham sites were also given to Tiger Community Enterprise CIC in Nottingham for their community sewing campaign tigercommunitystore.co.uk. In addition, the team at Ashfield Health Village, win Kirkby-In-Ashfield donated more than 60 surplus sets of scrubs.
Facts and figures – reducing textiles to landfill
In 2017, 921,000 tonnes of used textiles ended up in the household residual waste of which 336,000 tonnes was used clothing. About 620,000 tonnes of used textiles were collected for re-use and recycling in 2018. There is a smaller amount of used textiles found in the commercial residual waste stream.
It is estimated that there were around 267,000 tonnes of used textiles in the commercial municipal residual waste in England in 2017.
Another study in 2020 discovered the UK is the fourth largest producer of textile waste in Europe. The clothing industry in the United Kingdom is the third biggest in Europe in relative terms, representing 3.1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Out of the 3.1kg of textile waste each Briton produces every year, only 0.3kg are recycled and 0.4 kg are reused. However, 0.8kg are incinerated yearly per person and 1.7kg are disposed of in landfills.
The United Kingdom is second in terms of annual spending on new clothing, with an average of £980.50 per person.
Find a location to recycle clothing and textiles: www.recyclenow.com/recycle-an-item/clothing-textiles#locator
WRAP is a climate action NGO working around the globe to tackle the causes of the climate crisis and give the planet a sustainable future established in the UK in 2000 and working in 40+ countries.
Read: Wrap – Textiles – Market situation report 2019 (PDF).
We all have questions about recycling. Get real answers at www.recyclenow.com/
How CHP can help with recycling
CHP is committed to reducing carbon emissions, reducing waste and water usage; improving air quality; reducing single-use plastics, encouraging recycling and supporting a #GreenerNHS.
As well as supporting recycling such as bottles, cans, paper and cardboard as part of our waste removal capabilities, we have a dedicated expert in the CHP corporate team who supports and advises our tenants, Operation and Relationship Managers (ORM) and other CHP staff on best practices.
#RecycleWeek #GreenerNHS #ReturnReuseRecycle
Sustainability at CHP
Sustainable Facilities are one of our five strategic aims within our CHP Business Plan 2022/23 and Sustainability is one of our four corporate social responsibility pillars. As part of the NHS family, we are committed to supporting our customers with their sustainability ambitions including to reach net zero carbon.
Read: CHP Green Plan – A Greener CHP a greener NHS (PDF) March 2022
CHP Social Value
Social value is at the heart of Community Health Partnerships; CHP works diligently to have a positive impact on our staff, the environment, and local communities. We recognise that we can deliver more for our clients, the communities that we work in and society as a whole by taking steps to maximise the social value we generate as an organisation.
CHP undertook an exercise to find a way to measure and record their social value, creating a CHP’s Social Value Policy in August 2021.
This policy was updated in November 2022 – CHP Social Value Policy 2022 (PDF)
The policy uses a nationally recognised set of measures which help CHP understand those activities which provide the greatest social return and brings the most advantage to local communities. Our Buildings at the Heart of the Community initiative is a key component of our social value activities.
