Take your old bras into Oxfam. It’s been virtually impossible to resell underwear. Until now. That’s because Oxfam’s recycling plant in Huddersfield, Wastesavers, sees bras as “invaluable revenue-generating items.”

Bras are valuable because they are lightweight, meaning you get more in a kilo, which in turn means they fetch a higher price per kilo. And bras from the UK are particularly popular. “They are technically difficult to make and those from here are considered to be of superior quality in the developing world," says Tony Clark, General Manager at Wastesavers.

Wastesavers is where clothes that cannot be sold in shops end up, when the material is either recycled, if the item is damaged, or sold to traders who send them to developing countries.

(Please note that Oxfam is still in the process of notifying its 570 clothes shops, and the 1000s of volunteers who work in them, about Wastesaver. So you may find that your local Oxfam tells you it doesn’t accept bras. But they do. They just might not know it yet.)

Read more about this here in the Times online

Flickr photosource – thanks MathieuB