Sustainability
We believe that the most sustainable products to sell are the ones that are already in existence. If the world stopped creating new clothes today, we’d still have enough clothes on the planet to clothe the next 6 generations. (EcoAge, 2025) It’s estimated that clothing is worn only 5 times before being thrown away (Recycling Expo, 2025) and by 2050, it’s estimated that the fashion industry will create 138 Billion items that go unworn each and every year. (Oxfam, 2025) We’re doing our bit to provide a solution to this very big problem. We may be small, but our convictions are mighty.
UK Sourcing
We believe that you don’t have to go far to make a difference, which is why we only source items from UK-based suppliers, charities and rag houses. This reduces the additional transportation of goods and mitigates the additional negative impacts that importing has on our planet. While we may sell products that originate from outside of the UK, for example, American coaching jackets or American deadstock products, we only source these items when they are already in the UK.
What We Do & Don’t Sell
We don’t sell items requiring you to repair them. If a garment requires a repair, it is repaired or upcycled before it is resold and sent to its new home. You won’t find Rebels and Rainbows selling intimate items such as underwear, socks, swimwear and nightwear. We also do not sell real furs. Some vintage items and vintage practises are better left in the past. Any real fur pieces that come across our desks are redistributed to one of two places: PETA and local animal sanctuaries, where the furs are used to keep animals warm and look after newborn animals.
Upcycling & Donations
As is the nature of the reselling and vintage clothing business, not all items we source can be sold. Some will require small repairs, upcycling or recycling. We have 3 approaches when it comes to items we can’t sell.
- Upcycling - Can we repair it in-house or up-cycle it into another garment for reselling.
- Donating - Can we donate to a local charity donation centre for them to resell? For items that feature personalisation or damage that wouldn’t be resold, we donate to local homeless charities, who happily take donations as part of their local aid programmes.
- Recycling - Responsible fabric recycling or donated to local reuse programmes such as CROWE Recycling, Coventry. We also donate any excess packaging to Crowe recycling for their scrap store. Our donations are then reused into craft projects.
Our Packaging
All of our packaging is biodegradable. We take a minimum thrills approach to our packaging. We don’t dispatch items with printed invoices to reduce waste, use FSC certified card for our labels and print with refilled ink cartridges.
Where We Want & Need To Improve
In 2026, we’ll be searching for a replacement for our plastic tags used to attach our price labels and sampling a run of product stickers that are 100% biodegradable. On the upcycling side of Rebels & Rainbows, we’ll be looking for a new elastic supplier for our hair bands, either buying deadstock elastics in bulk or finding a supplier that creates elastic bands using a plant-based alternative to elastic (if there is such a thing!)
One day, we’d like to be using electric vans for our pick-ups and deliveries. We’d also like to be using 100% solar-powered energy in our studio. We’re a way off right now (£££), but it’s on the vision board for the future.
We welcome any suggestions or questions surrounding our sustainability practises and always appreciate supplier and innovator recommendations. Contact us here.
