Unworn Trainers or Boots in a Sunderland Hallway?

Walk around Sunderland’s older terraces near Roker or the newer estates out towards Washington and you’ll find the same thing tucked away in every hallway cupboard: a jumble of shoes nobody quite gets round to dealing with. School shoes a child grew out of by half term, trainers replaced the moment a newer model landed, a pair of wellies that did one soggy festival and never left the shed since. Anglo Doorstep Collections picks all of it up free, straight from your doorstep, anywhere across the city and out to Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, Seaham and South Shields.

It’s a small act with a bigger purpose attached. Every bag handed over feeds into a wider effort — part of our broader donating shoes, trainers and boots work — that keeps wearable footwear in use rather than letting it rot in landfill, and raises money for good causes along the way. No charge, no catch, just a slot booked online and a driver at your door.

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Free doorstep collection across Sunderland, Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, Seaham and South Shields
A large percentage of proceeds goes to good causes and local charities
Keeps wearable shoes, boots and trainers in use instead of landfill

Pretty much anything on your feet counts: trainers, school shoes, work boots, sandals, heels, slippers and wellington boots are all welcome, whatever the brand. The only real test is condition — if a pair is clean, dry and still has wear left in it, it’s worth bagging up rather than binning.

Yes — plenty of people assume only pristine, barely-worn shoes are worth donating, but everyday trainers, football boots a child has grown out of, or heels worn for one wedding all have a home with someone else. Shoes that are genuinely falling apart, soaked through or beyond repair aren’t something we can pass on, and those are better sent through your usual council waste route.

Keep each pair together — tie the laces or loop an elastic band round them — so they don’t get split up before reaching their next owner. Bag or box them separately from clothing and write “shoes” on the outside so the driver can see at a glance what’s inside.

Wearable pairs are sorted and passed on for reuse, either resold or redistributed so someone else gets genuine use from them, with a large percentage of proceeds supporting charitable causes. It’s a far better outcome than recycling, which isn’t really available for most footwear anyway — a typical pair is glued together from leather, rubber, foam and synthetics, layers that are notoriously difficult to separate once bonded.

Absolutely — children typically grow out of shoes long before they wear them out, so a pair barely scuffed from a term at school can still give another child months of use. Clearing them out of a bedroom floor or understairs cupboard also tends to free up far more space than parents expect, which is often a nice side benefit of sorting through kids’ things.

Booking online takes a couple of minutes, and we collect directly from your doorstep anywhere across Sunderland and the surrounding area. We send your allotted time slot the evening before collection day, so you’ve a rough idea when to expect us without needing to wait in all day.

Yes — a footwear clear-out is often the moment people notice other things worth donating too. We also collect clothes, linen and towels, books, toys, household items and kitchenware, all on the same visit with no need to book separately.

Why it matters locally

With around 174,000 people living in Sunderland, plus more across Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, Seaham and South Shields, even modest participation adds up to a meaningful volume of footwear changing hands rather than being thrown away. Worldwide, around 23.9 billion pairs of shoes were made in 2024 alone, and an estimated 85% of the pairs UK households throw away end up in landfill — against that backdrop, every pair that gets a second wearer rather than a bin bag is doing real work. Wearing a pair of trainers again, instead of buying new, is estimated to avoid around 14 kg of CO2, roughly what MIT research associates with manufacturing a fresh pair of running shoes — multiply that across enough doorsteps in Sunderland and the saving stops being trivial.

There’s a tidier-streets argument here too. Shoes left out for the bin men, dumped by bins or abandoned in gardens contribute to the kind of low-level fly-tipping that makes an area feel neglected, and Sunderland City Council’s own household waste guidance is worth checking if you’re ever unsure what’s collectable kerbside versus what should come to us instead. Donating is the better option in almost every case where footwear is still wearable — it keeps things out of landfill, supports local causes, and saves you a trip to a charity shop you may never quite get round to making. You can see everywhere else we collect from on our collections near you page, or browse what we take across Tyne and Wear more broadly.