Sell Books Ltd are committed to ensuring that the highest percentage of books are rehoused, reused and recycled as possible. Our process seeks to first resell as many books individually as possible, followed by batching of books into joblots for sale such as boxes of novels or children’s books or by author. Those books not suitable for resale, due to high levels of damage or being outdated or overproduced, are sent for paper recycling. Paper is an inherently recyclable material and is in high demand, and as such all unwanted books are collected and recycled in a local paper mill based just 12 miles from our offices.
We try to reduce our environmental footprint by optimising our collection runs geographically, and our collections depot is located centrally to the shops we collect from in Haringey, North London. We ask that shops with low number of books for collection advise us in advance if they can skip collections to save fuel, and that all boxes are packed tightly and fully to ensure less trips are necessary.
Compared with some of our rivals who drive into the city from distant industrial parks as far away as the midlands, this significantly reduces our environmental impact as well as ensuring that a stronger connection is maintained to the communities that donate the books to the charities.
Our postage bags for dispatching sold books from our warehouse are made from 100% recycled material and are recyclable themselves, they are also wrap tightly around the item allowing more to be fit onto vehicles further reducing the environmental impact. Larger items are sent in recyclable cardboard.
All our UK based staff are on rates at least Living Wage Foundation levels as basic salary (including London Living Wage in London), plus any applicable bonuses on top of this. We are committed to diversity and inclusivity and this is reflected in our staffing demographics with more than half of our London based staff born outside of the UK.