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According to the UK Government’s Waste Strategy, “we use too much and are too ready to throw things away, and this waste causes damage if it is not managed properly. We can no longer ignore this” (p 15). Our ‘readcycling’ model is designed to extend the life of educational materials by preventing good books and computers from going to recycling or landfill sites in the UK.
Use any good cardboard boxes (or buy some here) to package and tape up your items securely. Make sure each box weighs no more than 20kg and no longer than 60cm on any side. Complete our online booking form below to arrange a collection from any UK address or schedule a drop-off appointment to deliver to a drop-off point near you.
Contribute a minimum cash donation of £4 per box if you are dropping-off or £8 per box if you are arranging a collection to fund the UK journey of your items to our Processing Centre in Canterbury . An optional additional donation of £8 per box funds the Africa journey too from our UK Processing Centre to approved beneficiaries across Africa.
Write your tracking reference on all your boxes before sending them to our UK Processing Centre, where your items are processed, catalogued, categorised, and shipped in containers to approved projects in Africa. We'll email you tracking notifications along the journey and an impact photo of the beneficiary of your items.
Please take some time to read what we accept before sending your donated items.
Each of your donated books will be scanned and catalogued at our Processing Centre to create a record of all your donated books. A minimum of 80% of donated books are allocated to one of several subject categories and palletised together with similar books from other donors ready for shipping to projects in Africa. The remaining 20% consists of books that are sold via our Charity Shop to fund our overheads and about a small minority of damaged books which are recycled responsibly.
We are a Microsoft Third Party Refurbisher (TPR) and our Tech Team checks and refurbishes donated technology in line with Microsoft’s standards, ensuring all data on devices are securely wiped. We wipe data from compatible devices using BitRaser – a secure drive wiping software tested and approved by the NIST which also generates 100% tamper-proof digitally signed certificates that ensure compliance with various national & international data protection regulations. If donating Apple or Google devices, please remove your iCloud or Google account.
These items are sold via our Charity Shop to raise funds for the charity.
You can arrange a collection from your address, deliver to a Drop-off Point near you, or deliver to our Processing Centre in Canterbury.
You can register to become a Books2Africa Drop-off Point or organise a Readcycling Week.
Registering your UK school, college or university as a Books2Africa Drop-off Point and supporting our readcycling mission is a great way to improve your eco-status. You’ll need to have a storage container located on your premises to store boxes of donated items. You’ll also decide the days and times you want donors to book appointments to drop-off their boxes of donated items inside the container. You can also put your own items in the container without charge. When the container is full, contact us to arrange a free collection to empty it out. We’ll also keep a record and inform you of how many items were readcycled at your drop-off point.
Readcycling Week is Books2Africa’s book drive campaign and is the perfect way to maximise your impact. Choose a week for people in your workplace or community to bring their donated books and computers to a central location within your premises to be boxed up and sent to Africa. You can also ask people to make cash donations to fund the journey of their items by creating a JustGiving page. Register to get started and download readcycling week promotional resources such as posters and slides.
Our goal is to ship 1 million readcycled books a year to approved beneficiaries across Africa and we need to raise £200,000 a year in cash donations from our donors, sponsors and beneficiaries to achieve our goal. You can start a fundraiser in support of Books2Africa by creating a JustGiving page or make a grant to the charity to fund the shipment of a pallet (1,000 books), a 20ft container (20,000 books) or a 40ft container (40,000) books. You could also become a monthly sponsor giving £5 or more to help us achieve our impact goal.