SATCoL supports London Marathon Events

We’re proud to share that Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL) once again partnered with London Marathon Events (LME) as the lead clothing collection partner for the 2025 TCS London Marathon.

Our fleet of drivers and vans arrived on site before the road closures, while our volunteers and staff were assigned to five different zones where they collected items discarded by a total of 56,000 runners (making it officially the biggest marathon in the world). Within an hour after all the runners had departed the start line, our vans filled an entire trailer with hundreds of bags.

The clothing collected was transported to our processing centre in Kettering, for sorting and distribution. This will then be resold, reused, or recycled accordingly.

Richard Shea, Head of Retail Development, said: "When you take a step back you can see al the variables... the weather, how many runners attend or how much clothing we collect, but what's amazing to see are the consistencies - in the 2 hours that the runners are passing you, you realise they all got a glimpse of SATCoL, both what we do and how we do it. It's truly special!"

Through our collaboration with LME, we are able to support one of the missions of The Salvation Army, which is caring for creation; thus we were able to divert these discarded textiles from going into landfill, and promote sustainable practices.

LME shares this vision too, as one of their long-term objectives is to help drive positive change in environmental sustainability through its own actions and inspire its stakeholders and partners to do the same. More information on environmental sustainability at LME’s events can be found here.

You can also watch the behind the scenes of our London Marathon day below.