Shadow Chancellor visits church and hi-tech recycling centre

Rachel Reeves MP the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer was in Kettering on 29 June to visit The Salvation Army church as well as the Salvation Army’s trading arm at their textile recycling centre.

The MP made a special visit to the Christian church and charity and was hosted by Major Nigel Govier, co-leader at the church. He said:

“It was a joy to host Rachel who has family connections with The Salvation Army here in Kettering. Rachel’s father served in the band and she volunteered in our charity shop for work experience”.  

The church runs a food bank, where demand for food parcels has doubled in the last two years, now supporting 60 adults and children. Breakfasts are provided to people who are isolated, vulnerable and in need on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, as well as a lunch club on Fridays, serving 35 older people. The church has one of the biggest brass bands within The Salvation Army and are well known across the region.  

Rachel Reeves, Labour MP and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer said:

“It was wonderful to be back in Kettering where I spent so much time during my summer holidays with The Salvation Army when I was younger, and to see the amazing work that they continue to do at the Citadel and now at the new innovative Recycling Centre.”

The Shadow Chancellor was also able to see the huge investment made by the trading arm of The Salvation Army (SATCoL) into recycling textiles. Rachel saw how the recycling business use a technology called ‘Fibersort’ - that automatically sorts garments by fibre type. The business sorts and processes 65,000 tonnes of donated textiles every year.

The recycling centre also announced a world-first just recently – seeking to further reduce textile waste. Project Re:claim - a joint venture between leading corporate wear specialists Project Plan B and SATCoL - has successfully recycled polyester textiles back into raw material using new technology.

Project Plan B developed the exclusive polyester recycling system which is based on plastic bottle recycling. The Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL) will install the machine at one of their processing centres in September.

Majonne Frost, Head of Environment and Sustainability at SATCoL said:

“We were delighted to welcome Rachel Reeves MP to our SATCoL processing centre. We are working with game-changing technology to reduce textile waste and create opportunities for a sustainable future. SATCoL enable the reuse and recycling of over 250 million products per year and giving used textiles a new lease of life is a key part of that. It was a pleasure to share our exciting plans for this newly launched world-first technology. This is the future of fashion.”