The online not-for-profit and circular economy social enterprise, A Good Thing is celebrating a bumper 2023 in which it saw over 1.8 million items diverted from landfill or incineration and donated to charities across the UK.

Established to act as a ‘marketplace’ for rehoming pre-loved or unwanted items with charity organisations across the country, A Good Thing’s model is to facilitate and expedite the growth of the reuse market by connecting items with new users. 

Over the course of 2023, A Good Thing listed a record number of items from 92 different organisations from across the country. More than 1.8 million items were placed with some 270 UK charities, saving them more than £600,000.

The not-for-profit has reported a surge in the number of businesses and charities now signing up with A Good Thing as a part of their waste management processes. Last year, the platform averaged one new listing posted to the ‘marketplace’ each day. In the first two months of 2024 alone, A Good Thing has already doubled that average to two listings a day.

“Even we were surprised when we did the maths and discovered that 1.8 million items had been donated via A Good Thing in 2023. It’s just incredible,” Cathy Benwell, co-founder of A Good Thing told Products of Change. 

“We are looking forward to an even bigger and better year in 2024: only a few months in, and we are already looking at double the numbers of matches each month.”

Among the company’s 2023 highlights, A Good Thing has given special mention to The Giftware Association who was able to donate “a huge range of different giftware items”, while ‘hundreds of thousands’ of stress-relief squishy toys were gladly received by the team and grew to become a very popular item among its users.

“Businesses are having an impact on so many wonderful UK charities through their donations – charities that are under more pressure than ever in 2024, doing much-needed work in communities right across the country,” said Cathy.