2024 Lil ReUse Festival

Join us for the Lil ReUse Festival and Second-hand Market

Saturday November 16, 10am - 2pm

Knox Academy, Pencaitland Rd, Haddington.

Help us make Second-hand the first choice for everyone.

Here’s our FAQs on buying, donating, volunteers, how to buy without the kids seeing…

Why?

Zero Waste Scotland cites about four-fifths of Scotland’s footprint comes from the products and materials we manufacture, use, and throw away. In fact, the average Scot consumes 18.4 tonnes of materials every year – that’s the equivalent of 50kg per week on average. Just on clothes, we on average each spend £640/year and collectively throw out almost 1 million tonnes of textiles. About one third of this has barely been worn.

Second-hand needs to be our first choice if we are to cut our waste and keep every useable item in circulation for as long as possible.

Second-hand stuff always has a story, saves the world and your pennies. We adore our second-hand treasure. It means another family wasn’t exploited, or had to go without for us to get ‘new’ stuff. Second-hand means we get to boast about our community’s wealth in sharing. It means we don’t have to be ashamed of how much we waste, it means we apologise when we “have to” buy new. Santa loves it too - see our printable example of Second-hand Santa letters

Coming to buy?

Hooray! Thank you for doing your Lil thing for the planet. Here’s a few tips:

• Doors will open at 10am.

• Remember your shopping bags. Items will be priced per bag. A big bag like an Ikea blue bag is £20; a large shopper £15 (or two for £20), regular tote £10.

• Items can be set aside for collection later.

• Voucher payment is all that will be accepted on the day (but you can buy vouchers at the venue.)

• If you need a surprise set aside discreetly just let a Lil volunteer know 😉 Have you seen our Second-hand Santa letters?? Kids activities will also be available to keep them entertained.

No Cash, just vouchers

Everyone at the ReUse Festival will be ‘paying’ with vouchers. You can buy vouchers online to collect at the Welcome Desk, or pay cash in person on the day. If buying vouchers stretches your budget too far please contact us or our referral partners. We want everyone to be able to make second-hand their first choice.

Purchased vouchers that are unused can be refunded. Gifted vouchers can’t be refunded for cash.

How do we donate items?

Items can be taken to the to Lil Lorry at Knox Academy, Pencaitland Rd, Haddington. It will be there from noon on Monday November 11.

If it is unstaffed you can donate directly into the lorry. Please put it as near the back as possible.

What do you want donated?

• children’s clothes and footwear (no drawstrings that go all the way around necks or tummies)

• baby stuff

• adult clothes & footwear

• toys (Please check the CE labels still visible/ attached)

• bikes

• gardening equipment/ produce/ seeds/ plants

• tools (no electrical , sorry)

• homewares and kitchen equipment

• soft furnishings (curtains & cushions, throws etc, as long as fire labels still on any cushions with fillings)

• Sports kit

• Storage jars, food caddies
  

We don’t want (sorry):

• electrical items, including things that need to be USB charged

• large furniture (as a guide, we can only accept items one person can easily carry)

• earrings

• car seats

• magnets

  if you need a home for such things Zero Waste Dunbar now known as ReUse Scotland may be able to help

Gah, It’s Saturday, I have the kids in tow!?

AWESOME. We’ve got kids activities lined up for a family friendly day. Come see us if you need to set something aside for a surprise. We’ll have refreshments available too.

I’m a reuse/ waste tackling organisation, Can I have a whole table?

We have some space set aside for other ReUse and waste-reducing organisations. We’ll try to update as we confirm partners attending, and check out our social pages @dolilthings for more too. If you’d like your organisation to be there please email us.

Can I Help?

Oh yes please! Volunteers make things happen at Lil so we are always delighted to have you join the team. We need extra hands both before the event and on the day. Pop in to the Hub, email us at hello.lilthings@gmail.com or give Lou a call/Whatsapp on 07538031226. Thank you 😊

Why vouchers?

We sell via vouchers to people that can afford it, and gifting to those in need, so everyone uses vouchers on the day. The only distinguishing elements to the vouchers are that people who have bought vouchers can be refunded; referrals can’t exchange for cash.  Whether vouchers have been given or bought is a question on our evaluation sheets so we can share the impact with you and funders. We don’t want any perception of stigma or embarrassment, we’re all in this together!

We also don't want to devalue secondhand by making it all free, and the paid-for vouchers helps cover costs of the event for Lil too. Any leftover is put towards sustainability projects in our community.

“Loved the event. Saved me £100s.”

At our event in November 2022 in Haddington, we know people who said they received vouchers on their evaluation took home a total 474kg of stuff.

We’re of course delighted environmentally, but the cost-of-living bonus to that is awesome.

2023 saw a whopping 1237kg kept in circulation! What will 2024 bring??